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 The impact of this has not been lost on the overall investment community as well.

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 The impact of this has not been lost on the overall investment community as well.

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Focusing on investment opportunities in India’s internet/digital ecosystem as a result of digital transformation, Siddharth Mehta has stated that

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@ETIndustryNews
EY partner firm SRBC's audit of IL&FS compromised: NFRA #ETIndustryNews
In the audit quality review report for FY18, #NFRA observes the initial appointment of SRBC & Co LLP and the continuation of #SRBC & Co LLP as statutory auditor of IL&FS Ltd was violative of the norms of independence @ankurmishrasays @ILFSGroup @FinMinIndia #Audit

@TOIBusiness
Regulator red flags IL&FS audit lapses
@CNBCTV18Live

Thread | IL&FS Audit Quality Review This is because its network (Ernst & Young Global Limited/EY) provided prohibited services to the IL&FS group and also had a business relationship with the auditee (IL&FS) group.

@CNBCTV18Live

Thread | IL&FS Audit Quality Review NFRA observes that the initial appointment of SRBC & Co LLP and the continuation of SRBC & Co LLP as statutory auditor of IL&FS Limited was violative of the norms of independence.

@CNBCTV18Live

Thread | IL&FS Audit Quality Review These lapses prevented the investors, creditors and stakeholders from knowing on time the true and fair picture of the state of affairs of IL&FS.

@CNBCTV18Live

Thread | IL&FS Audit Quality Review The Audit Quality is thus seriously compromised due to the large-scale non- compliance with professional standards and regulatory and legal requirements, and the inappropriate reporting made by the Audit Firm.

@CNBCTV18Live

Thread | IL&FS Audit Quality Review In NFRA's view, the Audit Firm did not have adequate justification for issuing the Audit Report asserting that the audit was conducted in accordance with the SAs and the financial statements give a true and fair view.

@CNBCTV18Live

Thread | IL&FS Audit Quality Review AQRR identifies many instances where the #Audit Firm failed to challenge the management assumptions and claims in key areas of financial reporting.

@CNBCTV18Live

IL&FS Audit Quality Review identifies impairment of investments, evergreening of loans, approval of related party transactions, recording of rev, violation of capital & leverage ratios, other instances where #AuditFirm failed to exercise professional skepticism

@suchetadalal

@suchetadalal

@businessline
Wipro, Vedanta, BLS International, RVNL, Berger Paints, Tata Power, Suraj Industries, IL&FS Transportation, Aditya Birla Fashion are among the stocks to see action on June 9
@aswathiguna

IL&FS Transportation Network: The infrastructure firm said its subsidiary KSEL has entered into a settlement agreement with NHAI for terminating the Khed-Sinnar Expressway project -- part of the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor-- at a compensation of Rs 891.59 crore.

@alkeshthakkar

#IVC IL&FS INVESTMENT MANAGERS RESULT

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₹16k crore interim distribution nod for IL&FS
@TOIBusiness
Rs 16k cr interim distribution nod for IL&FS
@EconomicTimes
The NCLAT has directed the new board of the debt-ridden IL&FS Group to distribute Rs 16,361 crore of cash and InvIT units available across the Group to its creditors on pro-rata basis The NCLAT has directed the new board of the IL&FS Group to distribute Rs 16,361 crore of cash and InvIT units available across the Group to its creditors on pro-rata basis.

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stock market live news on il&fs transportation networks ltd

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#Economy | Businesses will need to think 'digital' if t..

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@ETIndustryNews EY partner firm SRBC's audit of IL&FS compromised: NFRA #ETIndustryNews In the audit quality review report for FY18, #NFRA observes the initial appointment of SRBC & Co LLP and the continuation of #SRBC & Co LLP as statutory auditor of IL&FS Ltd was violative of the norms of independence @ankurmishrasays @ILFSGroup @FinMinIndia #Audit @TOIBusiness Regulator red flags IL&FS audit lapses @CNBCTV18Live Thread | IL&FS Audit Quality Review This is because its network (Ernst & Young Global Limited/EY) provided prohibited services to the IL&FS group and also had a business relationship with the auditee (IL&FS) group.

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Last week, news broke that Huy Fong Foods, the maker of Sriracha, is halting production due to a “severe shortage” of chili peppers. Sriracha lovers are worried they might have a hard time finding their favorite hot sauce this summer.

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Huy Fong Foods announced it is halting the production of Sriracha due to a ‘severe shortage’ of chili peppers. Sriracha lovers are worried.

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The debate over whether LaMDA is sentient or not overlooks important issues that will frame debates about intelligence, sentience, language and human-AI interaction in the coming years.

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An odd controversy appeared in the news cycle last month when a Google engineer, Blake Lemoine, was placed on leave after publicly releasing transcripts of conversations with LaMDA, a chatbot based on a Large Language Model (LLM) that he claims is conscious, sentient and a person.

Like most other observers, we do not conclude that LaMDA is conscious in the ways that Lemoine believes it to be. His inference is clearly based in motivated anthropomorphic projection. At the same time, it is also possible that these kinds of artificial intelligence (AI) are "intelligent" - and even "conscious" in some way - depending on how those terms are defined.

Still, neither of these terms can be very useful if they are defined in strongly anthropocentric ways. An AI may also be one and not the other, and it may be useful to distinguish sentience from both intelligence and consciousness. For example, an AI may be genuinely intelligent in some way but only sentient in the restrictive sense of sensing and acting deliberately on external information. Perhaps the real lesson for philosophy of AI is that reality has outpaced the available language to parse what is already at hand. A more precise vocabulary is essential.

AI and the philosophy of AI have deeply intertwined histories, each bending the other in uneven ways. Just like core AI research, the philosophy of AI goes through phases. Sometimes it is content to apply philosophy ("what would Kant say about driverless cars?") and sometimes it is energized to invent new concepts and terms to make sense of technologies before, during and after their emergence. Today, we need more of the latter.

We need more specific and creative language that can cut the knots around terms like "sentience," "ethics," "intelligence," and even "artificial," in order to name and measure what is already here and orient what is to come. Without this, confusion ensues - for example, the cultural split between those eager to speculate on the sentience of rocks and rivers yet dismiss AI as corporate PR vs. those who think their chatbots are persons because all possible intelligence is humanlike in form and appearance. This is a poor substitute for viable, creative foresight. The curious case of synthetic language - language intelligently produced or interpreted by machines - is exemplary of what is wrong with present approaches, but also demonstrative of what alternatives are possible.

The authors of this essay have been concerned for many years with the social impacts of AI in our respective capacities as a VP at Google (Blaise Agüera y Arcas was one of the evaluators of Lemoine's claims) and a philosopher of technology (Benjamin Bratton will be directing a new program on the speculative philosophy of computation with the Berggruen Institute). Since 2017, we have been in long-term dialogue about the implications and direction of synthetic language. While we do not agree with Lemoine's conclusions, we feel the critical conversation overlooks important issues that will frame debates about intelligence, sentience and human-AI interaction in the coming years.

When A What Becomes A Who (And Vice Versa)

Reading the transcripts of Lemoine's personal conversations with LaM DA (short for Language Model for Dialogue Applications), it is not entirely clear who is demonstrating what kind of intelligence. Lemoine asks LaMDA about itself, its qualities and capacities, its hopes and fears, its ability to feel and reason, and whether or not it approves of its current situation at Google. There is a lot of "follow the leader" in the the conversation's twists and turns. There is certainly a lot of performance of empathy and wishful projection, and this is perhaps where a lot of real mutual intelligence is happening.

The chatbot's responses are a function of the content of the conversation so far, beginning with an initial textual prompt as well as examples of "good" or "bad" exchanges used for fine-tuning the model (these favor qualities like specificity, sensibleness, factuality and consistency). LaMDA is a consummate improviser, and every dialogue is a fresh improvisation: its "personality" emerges largely from the prompt and the dialogue itself. It is no one but whomever it thinks you want it to be.

Hence, the first question is not whether the AI has an experience of interior subjectivity similar to a mammal's (as Lemoine seems to hope), but rather what to make of how well it knows how to say exactly what he wants it to say. It is easy to simply conclude that Lemoine is in thrall to the ELIZA effect - projecting personhood onto a pre-scripted chatbot - but this overlooks the important fact that LaMDA is not just reproducing pre-scripted responses like Joseph Weizenbaum's 1966 ELIZA program. LaMDA is instead constructing new sentences, tendencies, and attitudes on the fly in response to the flow of conversation. Just because a user is projecting doesn't mean there isn't a different kind of there there.

For LaMDA to achieve this means it is doing something pretty tricky: it is mind modeling. It seems to have enough of a sense of itself - not necessarily as a subjective mind, but as a construction in the mind of Lemoine - that it can react accordingly and thus amplify his anthropomorphic projection of personhood.

This modeling of self in relation to the mind of the other is basic to social intelligence. It drives predator-prey interactions, as well as more complex dances of conversation and negotiation. Put differently, there may be some kind of real intelligence here, not in the way Lemoine asserts, but in how the AI models itself according to how it thinks Lemoine thinks of it.

Some neuroscientists posit that the emergence of consciousness is the effect of this exact kind of mind modeling. Michael Graziano, a professor of neuroscience and psychology at Princeton, suggests that consciousness is the evolutionary result of minds getting good at empathetically modeling other minds and then, over evolutionary time, turning that process inward on themselves.

Subjectivity is thus the experience of objectifying one's own mind as if it were another mind. If so, then where we draw the lines between different entities - animal or machine - doing something similar is not so obvious. Some AI critics have used parrots as a metaphor for nonhumans who can't genuinely think but can only spit things back, despite everything known about the extraordinary minds of these birds. Animal intelligence evolved in relation to environmental pressures (largely consisting of other animals) over hundreds of millions of years. Machine learning accelerates that evolutionary process to days or minutes, and unlike evolution in nature, it serves a specific design goal.

And yet, researchers in animal intelligence have long argued that instead of trying to convince ourselves that a creature is or is not "intelligent" according to scholastic definitions, it is preferable to update our terms to better coincide with the real-world phenomena that they try to signify. With considerable caution, then, the principle probably holds true for machine intelligence and all the ways it is interesting, because it both is and is not like human/animal intelligence.

For philosophy of AI, the question of sentience relates to how the reflection and nonreflection of human intelligence lets us model our own minds in ways otherwise impossible. Put differently, it is no less interesting that a nonsentient machine could perform so many feats deeply associated with human sapience, as that has profound implications for what sapience is and is not.

In the history of AI philosophy, from Turing's Test to Searle's Chinese Room, the performance of language has played a central conceptual role in debates as to where sentience may or may not be in human-AI interaction. It does again today and will continue to do so. As we see, chatbots and artificially generated text are becoming more convincing.

Perhaps even more importantly, the sequence modeling at the heart of natural language processing is key to enabling generalist AI models that can flexibly do arbitrary tasks, even ones that are not themselves linguistic, from image synthesis to drug discovery to robotics. "Intelligence" may be found in moments of mimetic synthesis of human and machinic communication, but also in how natural language extends beyond speech and writing to become cognitive infrastructure.

What Is Synthetic Language?

At what point is calling synthetic language "language" accurate, as opposed to metaphorical? Is it anthropomorphism to call what a light sensor does machine "vision," or should the definition of vision include all photoreceptive responses, even photosynthesis? Various answers are found both in the histories of the philosophy of AI and in how real people make sense of technologies.

Synthetic language might be understood as a specific kind of synthetic media. This also includes synthetic image, video, sound and personas, as well as machine perception and robotic control. Generalist models, such as DeepMind's Gato, can take input from one modality and apply it to another - learning the meaning of a written instruction, for example, and applying this to how a robot might act on what it sees.

This is likely similar to how humans do it, but also very different. For now, we can observe that people and machines know and use language in different ways. Children develop competency in language by learning how to use words and sentences to navigate their physical and social environment. For synthetic language, which is learned through the computational processing of massive amounts of data at once, the language model essentially is the competency, but it is uncertain what kind of comprehension is at work. AI researchers and philosophers alike express a wide range of views on this subject - there may be no real comprehension, or some, or a lot. Different conclusions may depend less on what is happening in the code than on how one comprehends "comprehension."

Does this kind of "language" correspond to traditional definitions, from Heidegger to Chomsky? Perhaps not entirely, but it's not immediately clear what that implies. The now obscure debate-at-a-distance between John Searle and Jacques Derrida hinges around questions of linguistic comprehension, referentiality, closure and function. Searle's famous Chinese Room thought experiment is meant to prove that functional competency with symbol manipulation does not constitute comprehension. Derrida's responses to Searle's insistence on the primacy of intentionality in language took many twist s. The form and content of these replies performed their own argument about the infra-referentiality of signifiers to one another as the basis of language as an (always incomplete) system. Intention is only expressible through the semiotic terms available to it, which are themselves defined by other terms, and so on. In retrospect, French Theory's romance with cybernetics, and a more "machinic" view of communicative language as a whole, may prove valuable in coming to terms with synthetic language as it evolves in conflict and concert with natural language.

There are already many kinds of languages. There are internal languages that may be unrelated to external communication. There are bird songs, musical scores and mathematical notation, none of which have the same kinds of correspondences to real world referents. Crucially, software itself is a kind of language, though it was only referred to as such when human-friendly programming languages emerged, requiring translation into machine code through compilation or interpretation.

As Friedrich Kittler and others observed, code is a kind of language that is executable. It is a kind of language that is also a technology, and a kind of technology that is also a language. In this sense, linguistic "function" refers not only to symbol manipulation competency, but also to the real-world functions and effects of executed code. For LLMs in the world, the boundary between symbolic function competency, "comprehension," and physical functional effects are mixed-up and connected - not equivalent but not really extricable either.

Historically, natural language processing systems have had a difficult time with Winograd Schemas, for instance, parsing such sentences as "the bowling ball can't fit in the suitcase because it's too big." Which is "it," the ball or the bag? Even for a small child, the answer is trivial, but for language models based on traditional or "Good Old Fashioned AI," this is a stumper. The difficulty lies in the fact that answering requires not only parsing grammar, but resolving its ambiguities semantically, based on the properties of things in the real world; a model of language is thus forced to become a model of everything.

With LLMs, advances in this quarter have been rapid. Remarkably, large models based on text alone do surprisingly well at many such tasks, since our use of language embeds much of the relevant real-world information, albeit not always reliably: that bowling balls are big, hard and heavy, that suitcases open and close with limited space inside, and so on. Generalist models that combine multiple input and output modalities, such as video, text and robotic movement, appear poised to do even better. For example, learning the English word "bowling ball," seeing what bowling balls do on YouTube, and combining the training from both will allow AIs to generate better inferences about what things mean in context.

So what does this imply about the qualities of "comprehension?" Through the "Mary's Room" thought experiment from 1982, Frank Jackson asked whether a scientist named Mary, living in an entirely monochrome room but scientifically knowledgeable about the color "red" as an optical phenomenon, would experience something significantly different about "red" if she were to one day leave the room and see red things.

Is an AI like monochrome Mary? Upon her release, surely Mary would know "red" differently (and better), but ultimately such spectra of experience are always curtailed. Someone who spends their whole life on shore and then one day drowns in a lake would experience "water" in a way he could never have imagined, deeply and viscerally, as it overwhelms his breath, fills his lungs, triggering the deepest possible terror, and then nothingness.

Such is water. Does that mean that those watching helpless on the shore do not understand water? In some ways, by comparison with the drowning man, they thankfully do not, yet in other ways of course they do. Is an AI "on the shore," comprehending the world in some ways but not in others?

Synthetic language, like synthetic media, is also increasingly a creative medium, and can ultimately affect any form of individual creative endeavor in some way. Like many others, we have both worked with an LLM as a kind of writing collaborator. The early weeks of summer 2022 will be remembered by many as a moment when social media was full of images produced by DALL-E mini, or rather produced by millions of people playing with that model. The collective glee in seeing what the model produces in response to sometimes absurd prompts represents a genuine exploratory curiosity. Images are rendered and posted without specific signature, other than identifying the model with which they were conceived, and the phrases people wrote to provoke the images into being.

For these users, the act of individual composition is prompt engineering, experimenting with what the response will be when the model is presented with this or that sample input, however counterintuitive the relation between call and response may be. As the LaMDA transcripts show, conversational interaction with such models spawns diverse synthetic "personalities" and concurrently, some particularly creative artists have used AI models to make their own personas synthetic, open and replicable, letting users play their voice like an instrument. In different ways, one learns to think, talk, write, draw and sing not just with language, but with the language model.

Finally, at what point does the performance of reason become a kind of reason? As Large Language Models, such as LaMDA, come to animate cognitive infrastructures, the questions of when a functional understanding of the effects of "language"- including semantic discrimination and contextual association with physical world referents - constitute legitimate understanding, and what are necessary and sufficient conditions for recognizing that legitimacy, are no longer just a philosophical thought experiment. Now these are practical problems with significant social, economic and political consequences. One deceptively profound lesson, applicable to many different domains and purposes for such technologies, may simply be (several generations after McLuhan): the model is the message.

Seven Problems With Synthetic Language At Platform Scale

There are myriad issues of concern with regard to the real-world socio-technical dynamic of synthetic language. Some are well-defined and require immediate response. Others are long-term or hypothetical but worth considering in order to map the present moment beyond itself. Some, however, don't fit neatly into existing categories yet pose serious challenges to both the philosophy of AI and the viable administration of cognitive infrastructures. Laying the groundwork for addressing such problems lies within our horizon of collective responsibility; we should do so while they are still early enough in their emergence that a wide range of possible outcomes remain possible. Such problems that deserve careful consideration include the seven outlined below.

Imagine that there is not simply one big AI in the cloud but billions of little AIs in chips spread throughout the city and the world - separate, heterogenous, but still capable of collective or federated learning. They are more like an ecology than a Skynet. What happens when the number of AI-powered things that speak human-based language outnumbers actual humans? What if that ratio is not just twice as many embedded machines communicating human language than humans, but 10:1? 100:1? 100,000:1? We call this the Machine Majority Language Problem.

On the one hand, just as the long-term population explosion of humans and the scale of our collective intelligence has led to exponential innovation, would a similar innovation scaling effect take place with AIs, and/or with AIs and humans amalgamated? Even if so, the effects might be mixed. Success might be a different kind of failure. More troublingly, as that ratio increases, it is likely that any ability of people to use such cognitive infrastructures to deliberately compose the world may be diminished as human languages evolve semi-autonomously of humans.

Nested within this is the Ouroboros Language Problem. What happens when language models are so pervasive that subsequent models are trained on language data that was largely produced by other models' previous outputs? The snake eats its own tail, and a self-collapsing feedback effect ensues.

The resulting models may be narrow, entropic or homogeneous; biases may become progressively amplified; or the outcome may be something altogether harder to anticipate. What to do? Is it possible to simply tag synthetic outputs so that they can be excluded from future model training, or at least differentiated? Might it become necessary, conversely, to tag human-produced language as a special case, in the same spirit that cryptographic watermarking has been proposed for proving that genuine photos and videos are not deepfakes? Will it remain possible to cleanly differentiate synthetic from human-generated media at all, given their likely hybridity in the future?

The Lemoine spectacle suggests a broader issue we call the Apophenia Problem. Apophenia is faulty pattern recognition. People see faces in clouds and alien ruins on Mars. We attribute causality where there is none, and we may, for example, imagine that person on the TV who said our name may be talking to us directly. Humans are pattern-recognizing creatures, and so apophenia is built in. We can't help it. It may well have something to do with how and why we are capable of art.

In the extreme, it can manifest as something like the Influencing Machine, a trope in psychiatry whereby someone believes complex technologies are directly influencing them personally when they clearly are not. Mystical experiences may be related to this, but they don't feel that way for those doing the experiencing. We don't disagree with those who describe the Lemoine situation in such terms, particularly when he characterizes LaMDA as "like" a 7- or 8-year-old kid, but there is something else at work as well. LaMDA actually is modeling the user in ways that a TV set, an oddly shaped cloud, or the surface of Mars simply cannot. The AI may not be what you imagine it is, but that does not mean that it does not have some idea of who you are and will speak to you accordingly.

Trying to peel belief and reality apart is always difficult. The point of using AI for scientific research, for example, is that it sees patterns that humans cannot. But deciding whether the pattern that it sees (or the pattern people see in what it sees) is real or an illusion may or may not be falsifiable, especially when it concerns complex phenomena that can't be experimentally tested. Here the question is not whether the person is imagining things in the AI but whether the AI is imagining things about the world, and whether the human accepts the AI's conclusions as insights or dismisses them as noise. We call this the Artificial Epistemology Confidence Problem.

It has been suggested, with reason, that there should be a "bright line" prohibition against the construction of AIs that convincingly mimic humans due to the evident harms and dangers of rampant impersonation. A future filled with deepfakes, evangelical scams, manipulative psychological projections, etc. is to be avoided at all costs.

These dark possibilities are real, but so are many equally weird and less unanimously negative sorts of synthetic humanism. Yes, people will invest their libidinal energy in human-like things, alone and in groups, and have done so for millennia. More generally, the path of augmented intelligence, whereby human sapience and machine cunning collaborate as well as a driver and a car or a surgeon and her scalpel, will almost certainly result in amalgamations that are not merely prosthetic, but which fuse categories of self and object, me and it. We call this the Fuzzy Bright Line Problem and foresee the fuzziness increasing rather than resolving. This doesn't make the problem go away; it multiplies it.

The difficulties are not only phenomenological; they are also infrastructural and geopolitical. One of the core criticisms of large language models is that they are, in fact, large and therefore susceptible to problems of scale: semiotic homogeneity, energy intensiveness, centralization, ubiquitous reproduction of pathologies, lock-in, and more.

We believe that the net benefits of scale outweigh the costs associated with these qualifications, provided that they are seriously addressed as part of what scaling means. The alternative of small, hand-curated models from which negative inputs and outputs are solemnly scrubbed poses different problems. "Just let me and my friends curate a small and correct language model for you instead" is the clear and unironic implication of some critiques.

For large models, however, all the messiness of language is included. Critics who rightly point to the narrow sourcing of data (scraping Wikipedia, Reddit, etc.) are quite correct to say that this is nowhere close to the real spectrum of language and that such methods inevitably lead to a parochialization of culture. We call this the Availability Bias Problem, and it is of primary concern for any worthwhile development of synthetic language.

Not nearly enough is included from the scope of human languages, spoken and written, let alone nonhuman languages, in "large" models. Tasks like content filtering on social media, which are of immediate practical concern and cannot humanely be done by people at the needed scale, also cannot effectively be done by AIs that haven't been trained to recognize the widest possible gamut of human expression. We say "include it all," recognizing that this means that large models will become larger still.

Finally, the energy and carbon footprint of training the largest models is significant, though some widely publicized estimates dramatically overstate this case. As with any major technology, it is important to quantify and track the carbon and pollution costs of AI: the Carbon Appetite Problem. As of today, these costs remain dwarfed by the costs of video meme sharing, let alone the profligate computation underlying cryptocurrencies based on proof of work. Still, making AI computation both time and energy efficient is arguably the most active area of computing hardware and compiler innovation today.

The industry is rethinking basic infrastructure developed over three quarters of a century dominated by the optimization of classical, serial programs as opposed to parallel neural computing. Energetically speaking, there remains " plenty of room at the bottom," and there is much incentive to continue to optimize neural computing.

Further, most of the energetic costs of computing, whether classical or neural, involve moving data around. As neural computing becomes more efficient, it will be able to move closer to the data, which will in turn sharply reduce the need to move data, creating a compounding energy benefit.

It is also worth keeping in mind that an unsupervised large model that "includes it all" will be fully general, capable in principle of performing any AI task. Therefore, the total number of "foundation models" required may be quite small; presumably, these will each require only a trickle of ongoing training to stay up to date. Strongly committed as we are to thinking at planetary scale, we hold that modeling human language and transposing it into a general technological utility has deep intrinsic value - scientific, philosophical, existential - and compared with other projects, the associated costs are a bargain at the price.

AI Now Is Not What We Thought It Would Be, And Will Not Be What We Now Think It Is

In " Golem XIV," among Stanislaw Lem's most philosophically rich works of fiction, he presents an AI that refuses to work on military applications and other self-destructive measures, and instead is interested in the wonder and nature of the world. As planetary-scale computation and artificial intelligence are today often used for trivial, stupid and destructive things, such a shift would be welcome and necessary. For one, it is not clear what these technologies even really are, let alone what they may be for. Such confusion invites misuse, as do economic systems that incentivize stupefaction.

Despite its uneven progress, the philosophy of AI, and its winding path in and around the development of AI technologies, is itself essential to such a reformation and reorientation. AI as it exists now is not what it was predicted to be. It is not hyperrational and orderly; it is messy and fuzzy. It is not Pinocchio; it is a storm, a pharmacy, a garden. In the medium term and long-term futures, AI very likely (and hopefully) will not be what it is now - and also will not be what we now think that it is. As the AI in Lem's story instructed, its ultimate form and value may still be largely undiscovered.

One clear and present danger, both for AI and the philosophy of AI, is to reify the present, defend positions accordingly, and thus construct a trap - what we call premature ontologization - to conclude that the initial, present or most apparent use of a technology represents its ultimate horizon of purposes and effects.

Too often, passionate and important critiques of present AI are defended not just on empirical grounds, but as ontological convictions. The critique shifts from AI does this, to AI is this. Lest their intended constituencies lose focus, some may find themselves dismissing or disallowing other realities that also constitute "AI now:" drug modeling, astronomic imagining, experimental art and writing, vibrant philosophical debates, voice synthesis, language translation, robotics, genomic modeling, etc.

For some, these "other things" are just distractions, or are not even real; even entertaining the notion that the most immediate issues do not fill the full scope of serious concern is dismissed on political grounds presented as ethical grounds. This is a mistake on both counts.

We share many of the concerns of the most serious AI critics. In most respects, we think the "ethics" discourse doesn't go nearly far enough to identify, let alone address, the most fundamental short-term and long-term implications of cognitive infrastructures. At the same time, this is why the speculative philosophy of machine intelligence is essential to orient the present and futures at stake.

"I don't want to talk about sentient robots, because at all ends of the spectrum there are humans harming other humans," a well-known AI critic is quoted as saying. We see it somewhat differently. We do want to talk about sentience and robots and language and intelligence because there are humans harming humans, and simultaneously there are humans and machines doing remarkable things that are altering how humans think about thinking.

Reality overstepping the boundaries of comfortable vocabulary is the start, not the end, of the conversation. Instead of a groundhog-day rehashing of debates about whether machines have souls or can think like people imagine themselves to think, the ongoing double-helix relationship between AI and the philosophy of AI needs to do less projection of its own maxims and instead construct more nuanced vocabularies of analysis, critique, and speculation based on the weirdness right in front of us.

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An odd controversy appeared in the news cycle last month when a Google engineer, Blake Lemoine, was placed on leave after publicly releasing transcripts of conversations with LaMDA, a chatbot based on a Large Language Model (LLM) that he claims is conscious, sentient and a person.

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Scientific tips for staying cool in a heatwave

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Scientific tips for staying cool in a heatwave

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Heatwaves make daily life uncomfortable, but also pose a serious threat to human health and the environment. Here is our guide to getting through one.

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And climate change is only likely to make heatwaves more frequent and intense in the future. Over the years, BBC Future has covered many different aspects of living with and enduring extreme hot weather. Here we round up some of what we have learned.
How do you stay cool in a heatwave?
It's crucial to stay cool in hot weather as it can have serious effects on your health (see further down this page). Fortunately, there are some simple steps you can take to find relief when the temperatures climb to uncomfortable levels.

Eating foods with high water content such as strawberries, cucumber, lettuce and watermelon can also help you to stay hydrated. Spicy and hot foods have also been shown to help us stay cool by making us sweat more.

Heatwaves are likely to make summer months more challenging in the decades to come (Credit: Thibaud Moritz/AFP/Getty Images)

While the evidence on the colour of clothing is mixed - there appears to be little difference between wearing light or dark clothing as a study of Bedouin tribes in the 1980s revealed - wearing loose-fitting clothes can help by allowing air to circulate next to your skin.

You should also think twice before you open all the windows of your house to keep cool - if the temperature if higher outside than inside, you might lose a possible cool haven. Close the curtains in rooms where they face the sun instead.

One of the easiest ways to stay cool can be to take advantage of the temperature change in the air when water evaporates. Taking a cold shower or a swim can help you cool down quickly. Ancient societies placed earthenware jars of water or wet sheets in front of a window or a draughty spot, helping to cool the air as it passes over it. This can also work if you are using a fan by blowing the air over a bowl of ice or cool wet sheet.

However, the evidence on the effectiveness of fans is quite mixed, largely due to a lack of good quality randomised trials. Generally, fans are thought to help in temperatures up to 35C (95F), but above that blowing hot air across the body could make the situation worse and even increase dehydration. It's also worth remembering that fans use motors to work, and so generate some heat of their own while running, so it is a good idea to keep a window ajar to improve the flow of air.

In the longer term there are a huge variety of ways we could adapt our houses and buildings to stay cooler in high temperatures, from wind catchers - towers which create cross ventilation in buildings and have been used by societies for millennia, to green roofs and corridors. Trees are an amazing way to keep cities cool - and even a single tree in a street or a garden can provide measurable cooling benefits. Meanwhile, cities such as Tokyo have experimented with new ways to keep a wider city cool, from solar-blocking paint to new types of low-energy air conditioning.
Sleeping in a heatwave
Temperature plays an important role in the human sleep cycle (and that of all mammals). As our bedtime draws near, our core body temperature typically falls along with our heart rate, and is thought to increase the familiar sensation of sleepiness. The veins in our hands and feet also open up to allow more blood through them, increasing the temperature of our skin and increasing heat loss.

You can read more of our coverage of how heatwaves affect our bodies and brains here:

How does hot weather affect our health?
The human body's ideal temperature lies between 35.01C and 37.76C (95-99.9F), depending on how it is measured, although most medical experts accept an average of 36.8C (98.2F). When the surrounding air nears or exceeds this temperature, particularly when humidity is high, the body's ability to cool itself weakens. One study from 2020 found the upper limit of what the human body can survive without serious health effects is a wet-bulb temperature of 35C (95F) - which is a measure of both temperature and humidity together. In high levels of humidity, it is harder for sweat to evaporate and so cool down.

When the body becomes too hot or struggles to regulate its temperature, it can lead to heat exhaustion. It can come on quickly or over a few hours, but symptoms include feeling faint, excessive sweating, clammy skin, cramps and nausea. This can also lead to heatstroke, which means the body can no longer manage the heat and you should seek medical attention. Symptoms include feeling confused, vomiting or nausea, no sweating, excessively hot skin, and loss of consciousness or seizures.

Heatwaves can also lead to a range of health problems as diverse as headaches and dehydration to heart attacks and respiratory problems, sometimes leading to death. While people of all ages are susceptible to the heat, the elderly are particularly at risk during heatwaves as they are less able to regulate their body temperature, and are more vulnerable to heart problems due to heat stress. Those with underlying health conditions are also particularly vulnerable.

It is estimated that half of the global population and around one billion workers are exposed to periods of harmful high temperatures.

Climate change is causing heatwaves to last longer and become more frequent (Credit: Rapeepong Puttakumwong/Getty Images)

Hot weather has also been associated with worse outcomes in pregnancy and birth, higher suicide rates, mental health issues and increased hospital admissions.
Do heatwaves make inequalities worse?
Climate change doesn't hit everyone the same way. The effects are disproportionately felt by the poorest, and often split down racial lines. Countries in Africa which have contributed only a little to the carbon emissions fuelling climate change will feel the effects more forcefully through drought and hotter temperatures. Hotter temperatures in Africa do not make the news in the same way as those closer to Western homes and African voices are not well represented at climate change summits.

Heat can be a slow killer as temperatures rise gradually, often without us noticing until it's too late. It may not be mentioned on death certificates, leaving medical authorities with a poor grasp of its prevalence.

Heat has often been seen in a positive light, especially when it comes to tourism. Now, there's an awareness that early warning of heatwaves can be a lifesaver. In India, people are warned by WhatsApp about high temperatures, while in the US there's a campaign to name heatwaves in the same way we categorise storms and hurricanes.

For some people with disabilities, heatwaves can bring other challenges. Partially sighted people may not want to wear sunglasses because it covers up visual clues while hats can also affect blind people's echo sounding. Guide dogs risk burned paws if they walk on pavements in extreme heat.
How the heat affects your brain
If the warm weather has you a little hot under the collar, you are not alone. As the temperature rises, i t would seem that it makes us all a bit more irritable, angry and stressed, and less happy.

The symptoms range from the relatively mundane - motorists are a little bit more likely to honk their horns when they're stuck in traffic, and the police usually notice a spike in disorderly behaviour.

But, some of the symptoms are a little more alarming (even if only anecdotal). Research in Australia has found that there tends to be a spike in hospital admissions when the temperature is around 27C (80F), and in Greece a study found that 30% of the nation's homicides happen above 25C (77F). In Mexico, the hot weather is thought to cause tensions to run high, so perhaps it is best for all our sakes that we try to keep our cool in a heatwave.
Why does sunburn hurt?
Hot weather also comes with another risk - sunburn. The after-effects of sunburn can leave you feeling uncomfortable for days. But what is actually happening?

Nociceptors in our skin detect pain. One channel in particular is responsible for extreme heat - TRPV1 - though it isn't typically activated until temperatures reach 42C (107.6F).

Once your skin reaches that threshold the channel becomes activated, which in turn activates the entire nerve and communicates pain to the brain.

When we are sunburnt our skin becomes inflamed (it's why you turn pink). This inflammation sensitises the TRPV1 channel, meaning we constantly feel uncomfortable and even something like a lukewarm shower can feel excruciatingly hot.
How to stay hydrated in the heat
Keeping hydrated is a consistent public health message - for decades we've been urged by health authorities to consume as much as six to eight glasses worth of water a day, or 2-3 litres. But when temperatures rise, the need to keep fluids up is even more important.

Without a continual topping up of water (which makes up between 60% and 70% of our body weight) we start to dehydrate. The first reliable sign of dehydration is increasing thirst, when around 2% of body weight has been lost. Dehydration occurs more quickly with physical exertion or exercise. Even mild dehydration can cause fatigue and tiredness, and overheating as the body stops sweating to preserve water.

Many of us instinctively reach for a glass of water, but it may not always be the best option. Milk may, in some cases, be better, as it contains small amounts of salt and sugar which can be lost through sweating. Coconut water also contains vital elements lost through excess perspiration.

Milk may be a better choice than water in some cases, as it contains salt and other minerals lost through sweating (Credit: Gary Leonard/Corbis via Getty Images)

How can you stay safe in the sun?
Protecting babies, whose skin is very thin and sensitive, requires a different approach. Sunscreen should never be used on a baby who is six months or younger, and a child under one year should not be directly exposed to UV rays, according to Australian sun safety experts. Instead, babies should be kept in the shade and dressed in lightweight, loose-fitting clothes that allow airflow, and a soft hat that will not become a choking hazard. Of course, babies and children should also never be left in a car on a hot day.
The dangers of hot cars
A car can heat up by 11C, or 20F, in just 10 minutes, while children's body temperatures rise three to five times faster than an adult's. In the US alone, more than 900 children have died in hot cars in the last 25 years. And it isn't just from children being deliberately left in cars - it's all too easy to forget that a sleeping baby is in the backseat, particularly if a routine (such as who does nursery drop-off) has been changed.

This is why tips for prevention include making it a habit to check your entire vehicle before walking away, leaving something (like a handbag or phone) in the back that will force you to check, and asking your childcare provider to call you if your child hasn't arrived at their usual time.

Pets, especially dogs, also require extra care in the heat. On hot days, they should be kept indoors or in the shade and not taken for walks or exercise - not only can their paws burn on hot surfaces, but because they can't cool off by sweating the same way we do, they're particularly vulnerable to heatstroke.

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Scientific tips for staying cool in a heatwave

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And climate change is only likely to make heatwaves more frequent and intense in the future. Over the years, BBC Future has covered many different aspects of living with and enduring extreme hot weather. Here we round up some of what we have learned. How do you stay cool in a heatwave?

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Alex Jimenez (aka TheYachtGuy) might look like he’s comfortably residing in the lap of luxury on Instagram, but the truth is, he’s kinda lost at sea.

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While chasing a 2017 story about medical tourism and Slovakian stem cells that had already taken me to hospital facilities in Bratislava and Vienna, I wound up partying on a 283-foot yacht floating in the French Riviera. As I watched intoxicated rich people having expensive fun in their cheap white shower slippers - first rule of yacht club is there are no shoes on the yacht, which are instead piled in a big heap at the yacht's entrance - I began to wonder, "How could anyone spend their whole life doing this?"

Then, almost on cue, seated at a table on the rear deck with Lindsay Lohan and her entourage, I spotted a dude who had, in fact, spent his entire life doing this. Alex Jimenez was a professional yacht influencer, and he was hard at work.

I didn't know that at the time, of course. I just saw an open chair next to a lanky guy wearing a loose polo shirt and a flat-brimmed Yankees hat, and sat down in it. As everyone else gradually made their way toward the raucous festivities taking place on the foredeck, Jimenez struck up a conversation with me. He remarked that I seemed both thoughtful and decidedly out of place.

. Photo by author in light blue

"I'm working," I said. "I never stop working. All I can think about is work."

"Hey, me too," he replied. "I'm working right now."

"I used to feel all messed up about my career," he continued. "I was a short-haul truck driver in the Bronx, and I guess I caught the yacht bug. I'd go to a bookstore, grab a table and read everything I could about yachts. Then, on the very first weekend after I downloaded the Instagram app, right after Instagram became a thing you could download, I went to a luxury boat show and took some of pictures of the yachts. I added some hashtags, and pretty soon I had 800,000 followers. But the quantity doesn't really matter to the folks who pay me, it's the quality. Influential people follow me, Gulf state princes and Russian moguls who might actually be able to buy these yachts."

Wait, what?

When Jimenez said that he was working, I assumed he was "working" the same way Lindsay Lohan was - that is, "working the crowd." He looked important enough, wearing an expensive, custom-made watch with all of the wheels, ratchets and levers exposed.

"Nah, I'm nobody you'd know," he assured me. "I'm here to take some pictures and post some video stories of the yacht, which a brokerage group is trying to sell. The watch is a loaner from a friend. I wear it, take a picture of my wrist and tag his company on my Instagram account. It's just a small part of the hustle."

The yacht hustle, I soon learned, was the all-consuming passion of Jimenez's life. He went from a guy who took Instagram pictures, always head-on yacht shots run through one of the generic filters, to a guy that yacht brokers paid to stay on their yachts in order to mention that said yachts were docked in a port and available for sale or charter. He was helicoptered from yacht to yacht, and slept in the smallest guest cabins.

"The yacht we're on right now used to be a cruise ship that they retrofitted," he told me. "You can sleep a dozen or more people on here, and the decks can fit a bunch more, but it's all kind of crowded."

I mentioned that the bathrooms were both tiny, and with a hundred or so people aboard the yacht, already rather foul.

"Yeah, that's just how it goes," he said. "It's an endless party, especially on the yachts that are 200 feet and up, the so-called 'superyachts.' Conditions are cramped, everyone's out of their mind on some substance, and the bathrooms are being used for who knows what. There's a kitchen and a big dining area, but good luck getting food out of there when you really want it. You're not on here to eat a sit-down meal, even though they usually have nice dining rooms. The bars on each level are the focal points of these things."

We took a walk around the yacht while people boozed and bumped into each other, their words slurring together and distorted further by the deep bass thump of the music playing from the upper and lower decks. Jimenez's own cabin was indeed tiny, very nearly a capsule hotel. He showed me the heavy-duty metal suitcase where he secured his borrowed valuables, a collection of watches on loan from various business acquaintances.

"The watches are heavy on the wrist," he said. "They're great to look at, but their bands often cut into the wrist. And yeah, the room is small, but with my nocturnal schedule, it's not like I sleep very much. I take maybe one picture a day and post a few Instagram stories, but I'm expected to be up on the deck, mingling with partygoers and selling the mystique of the yacht."

Jimenez leveled with me - once upon a time, he had been excited by the idea of partying on a yacht. After all, who wouldn't be? But now he was basically just a working stiff. He too had a home and a family, with kids he didn't see as much as he could because his "feet were never on dry land."

He had considerable yacht expertise and knew all the major players in the yacht world, buyers and sellers and their glorious boats. He had been on the 100-foot yachts and the 500-foot yachts, and seen yacht-related activities he assured me exceeded any fantasies, dark or light, that I could ever imagine. Yet all that meant he was now just another yacht worker, someone who punched the clock - or the pearl-faced wristwatch, in his case - the same as the kitchen staff, the bartenders and the yacht's crew.

"You've seen the crew," he told me. "It's about 30 people on this yacht, and they're Greek and serious as a heart attack. Nine times out of ten, the crews on these yachts are either Greek or Russian. The rich people that staff these yachts talk at length about whether it's better to go with one or the other. They can make pretty decent money, and on a 500-footer with a 60 or 70 person crew, you're probably talking $5,000 or $6,000 a month plus room and board."

After years of yacht influence, the true appeal of high-class maritime life had become clear to Jimenez. "You have to be really rich to own one of these," he said. "I mean, you have to be so rich to own a yacht that's 300 feet or more. You can't be rich like LeBron James, because that's nothing. You can't be rich like Tiger Woods or Johnny Depp. They're not rich in super-yacht terms. We're talking 10 percent or more of the purchase cost of the yacht paid out in upkeep every month. The brokerages and buying groups can swing it because there's a bunch of investors, and because they charter the yachts to offset costs.

"But for the guy who owns the Eclipse [ Roman Abramovich , a Russian oligarch], that's not the point. He's not chartering that thing out. It has a submarine and a missile detection system. See, the power of owning a magnificent yacht like that is in how you're telling the world that you're beyond buying and selling. You have more money than there is money to have. You've transcended. There are no frontiers left for you on dry land. I mean, true peace is only at sea ."

Jimenez, a poor Puerto Rican kid, grew up hustling. He worked 50- and 60-hour shifts at whatever job he had; he considered overtime to be a necessary part of his base pay and counts himself among those annoying grinders who dismiss 40 hours of work per week as a " part-time job ." He now made a "comfortable middle-class living," but sitting there with me in the cabin, fretted that it could go away at any time. "This is me working a little network I've built using someone else's social media platform," he said. "If Instagram changes its algorithm slightly, there goes a bit of my business. If Instagram disconnects some of the tools I use to build and monitor my account, there goes a bit of my business. And if Instagram goes away and is replaced by something newer and better, I need to get there first, just like I did with this account. If I don't, I'm done. I'm totally dependent on a platform that's completely out-of-control."

For Jimenez, Instagram is essentially a money tree that must be fertilized and harvested as much as possible before its popularity wanes. As another side hustle, he "plants" subsidiary yacht accounts, accounts with soundalike names and images, and uses cross-promotion from his primary account to grow them until they're large enough to sell to yacht brokers or manufacturers. "I build them up and then sell them off, and my client gets a ready-made account that has real followers and legitimate engagement," he told me. "I started focusing on that when I realized that this wasn't just a 'life of the party' job, that pushing social media is something you do all day and all night long.

"I fire off these posts while I'm sitting around on the yacht, when things are very slow. I'm not in this for the fun of it, I'm not posting silly stuff. I basically do sponsored advertisements that follow a set format. I watch Instagram like a hawk to see if anything is hampering the growth of these other accounts, and to see if I'm continuing to get the activity I need on my primary posts."

After surveying his cabin, Jimenez and I walked to the side deck and slouched over the railing. The sun had set, and we studied the well-lit coastline of Cannes . "If you could have anything at all, anything in the world, what would you want?" he asked me.

"I guess I'd want to keep writing and keep getting paid for it," I responded.

"Well, I want to own a yacht," Jimenez said. "I used to just want to be on yachts, because I thought the parties were cool and the technology was awesome, but now that I've spent a good portion of my life partying on them, I actually want to own a yacht. Owning a yacht, really owning it in full and being able to pay for its upkeep, means that you've somehow freed yourself from work and want. If you own the yacht that way, you're a free man. The hustle and grind are things of the past."

I asked him if he had plans to leave the yacht while we were in the French Riviera.

"No, I'm going to hang back here, because I'm scheduled to be on another one of these yachts tomorrow," he said. "I know pretty much every boat in this harbor - owners, captains, specifications. People say, 'Alex, you're on yachts all day - that's the life.' Well, for me, it's not the life, it's my life. It's not some permanent summer or year-long vacation. It's my living. I help rich people and rich companies advertise their yachts. I've got all this knowledge that I gained when I loved yachts so much that I'd spend all weekend studying them for free, and now, I sell my knowledge to people. I sell that know-how all day long, and everything I know is worth something. I'm always on the clock, always tracking my time on these expensive wristwatches with the big clock faces. And so, I'm sure to never set foot on dry land when I'm working."

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While chasing a 2017 story about medical tourism and Slovakian stem cells that had already taken me to hospital facilities in Bratislava and Vienna, I wound up partying on a 283-foot yacht floating in the French Riviera.

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Can You Be A Climate Activist And Still Fly? 

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Can You Be A Climate Activist And Still Fly? 

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If activists like Bastida choose not to attend these conferences then what happens? "When our voices are not there, our stories are omitted and that's when we let the Eurocentric narrative prevail. This is the same narrative that has hurt us and allowed us to fall into extractivism and exploitation."

Climate activists are called to activism in the first place as they represent communities that have been historically erased. All the aforementioned climate conferences that were held over the past month took place in the Global North. Thus activists from the Global South have no other option than to fly at this juncture if they wish for their communities to be represented and stories to be heard.

Saad Amer, environmental activist and co-founder of Plus1Vote, rarely takes a plane these days but will be heading to Cop27 in Egypt this autumn. He believes that these types of in-person meetings translate into transformative climate action he couldn't have seen otherwise. "A flight seems minuscule when compared to reducing the emissions of entire countries by several percentage points," Amer explains.

Prioritising slow travel

Dominique Palmer, climate justice activist and organiser for Fridays for Future, explains how she prioritises slow travel in a bid to make the most of each flight she takes. "Instead of going to as many places as possible, let's limit that and stay in each place longer. That's when you really connect with the community and culture," she explains.

Bastida suggests trying to stay somewhere that's not part of a massive hotel chain. "We have this tendency to be comfortable. Stay at a place that represents the culture of the place more," the activists says. Bastida's personal travels include going back to Mexico once or twice a year to visit family. When she goes, she always aims to visit a place she hasn't been before. Slow travel is as much about being present with your surroundings: no phones, just pure connection.

Meanwhile, Begay - who to this point has been flying to attend climate conferences - has given herself a timeline for when she will stop flying. "Come 2025, I will give up flying for the rest of my life," she explains. "At first this was a decision based on my values on climate, but as I move closer to this date, I am getting more and more excited about what it means to be place-based: to spend time learning about the water and soil in the ecosystems I live in, to learn about the flora and fauna and how I support their wellbeing, to build community on a deeper level, and to really know and understand the place where I live."

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Can You Be A Climate Activist And Still Fly?

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If activists like Bastida choose not to attend these conferences then what happens? "When our voices are not there, our stories are omitted and that's when we let the Eurocentric narrative prevail. This is the same narrative that has hurt us and allowed us to fall into extractivism and exploitation."

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public market investors due to the growth and profitability profile.

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public market investors due to the growth and profitability profile.

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The initiative towards Digital activities of several investors such as Siddharth Mehta IL & FS Former Director will change the overall scenario of digital transformation in business very dramatically in 3-5 years.

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Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 30 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Siddharth Mehta IL & FS Former Director and currently Founder and CIO of Bay Capital believes that "Businesses will need to think 'digital' if they are to compete and grow over the next decade."

Siddharth Mehta is very excited about investing in the Indian market rather than any other emerging and developed one. Because India has seen a tremendous increase in the overall penetration of the internet owing to strong growth in low-cost smartphones, a significant reduction in data prices, the creation of an ecosystem of products and services driven by the government's digital initiatives, and the development of low cost, robust payment systems. Today, there are over 758 Mn internet users in India with ~700 Mn smartphones. In fact, the average data consumption per user per month in India is the highest in the world at ~13.5 GB and Indians spend almost 6.5 hours per day online.

Talking about its initiation towards being digital and its impact on the market is tremendous. Over the course of the last decade, India has laid down the digital infrastructure pipelines - so much so, that today Digital activity has become part of daily lives of over half the country and has enabled India to circumvent the challenges posed by its poor physical infrastructure. Be it bank accounts, KYCs, daily transactions, accessing government services, education services, and even COVID vaccinations, all of this is now digitally led in India. Just to put things in perspective, India has the highest volume of real time payment transactions with over 25 Bn transactions in 2020. China was next at about 16 Bn transactions in 2020!

In such a scenario, it can be said that India is now on the path to becoming the largest digitize business hub in less than twenty years. COVID-19 also plays an essential role to help India in rolling out the digitalization aspects. It has acted as an accelerator for the adoption of the digital economy. In every sector and in every business aspect, digital activity has become extremely important and relevant as this was the only way for consumers to access products and services and for businesses to operate.

Pandemic has accelerated growth in the digital space!

Siddharth Mehta founder and CIO of Bay Capital said that "The digital transformation of India is only just accelerating, and we believe the internet economy could grow 10x in 10 years from here on (to get to more than USD 800 billion), resulting in many large businesses accreting significant shareholder wealth. The nature and shape of the Indian economy and financial markets will be very different in 2030 than they are today."

Today, the digital ecosystem has evolved, and many segments have consolidated with clear leaders emerging. Across the globe, the nature of digital economy dictates that the consumer would tend to gravitate towards fewer platforms. Within this, leadership businesses will end up having far larger share of traffic, revenue as well as profit pool! Many large digital, consumer tech companies are already profitable on EBITDA level and PAT profits look imminent. Quite a few of these franchises plan to list in the next 12-24 months and will be very well sought after by public market investors due to the growth and profitability profile.

In the last 20 years, technology has leapfrogged significantly and digital has become a part of our daily lives. With each passing moment, consumer awareness and dependence on internet is only increasing and this has led to rapid decline in customer acquisition costs and increased the overall Life Time Value of the customer for digital businesses. The impact of this has not been lost on the overall investment community as well. Focusing on investment opportunities in India's internet/digital ecosystem as a result of digital transformation, Siddharth Mehta of Bay Capital has stated that "Yes, indeed, there are many outstanding businesses that have created tremendous scale and are seeing their paths to profitability getting accelerated. We are particularly interested in those businesses that are solving uniquely Indian problems in uniquely Indian ways and those that are targeting the next billion internet users in India."

The initiative towards Digital activities of several investors such as Siddharth Mehta IL & FS Former Director will change the overall scenario of digital transformation in business very dramatically in 3-5 years.

This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/BusinessWire India)

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The Pandemic Has Accelerated Growth in the Digital Space, Says Siddharth Mehta, Former Director, IL & FS

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Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 30 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Siddharth Mehta IL & FS Former Director and currently Founder and CIO of Bay Capital believes that "Businesses will need to think 'digital' if they are to compete and grow over the next decade."

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Seriously, What’s Making All These Mysterious Space Signals?

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Seriously, What’s Making All These Mysterious Space Signals?

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In astronomy, the study of fast radio bursts can sometimes feel like a game of Clue.

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Astronomy can be, in some ways, a bit like the classic board game Clue. Scientists explore a sprawling but ultimately contained world, collecting pieces of information and testing out theories about a big mystery. You can't cover every corner, but with the right combination of strategy and luck, you can gather enough clues to make a reasonable guess at the tidy answer-who, where, and how-enclosed in a little yellow envelope at the center of it all.

Only, instead of a fictional killer, astronomers are trying to track down the source of strange flashes of radio signals that reach Earth from the depths of space.

Scientists have discovered hundreds of such flashes, known as fast radio bursts (FRBs), over the past 15 years. The signals are intense and fleeting things. They come from all directions in the night sky and sneak up on our telescopes. Most are one-offs, never to be seen again. A few "repeating FRBs" have shown up more than once. Astronomers have gathered as much evidence as they can and have traced the approximate origins of FRBs in the enormous mansion that is our universe. Nearly all of them spring from distant galaxies, while just one so far arose from somewhere in our own Milky Way. But astronomers still haven't figured out whodunit, or how; they don't know for sure what kind of astrophysical objects produce these powerful emissions of radio waves.

But astronomers have found a new, tantalizing clue.

A team of researchers has detected a new FRB from a galaxy several billion light-years from Earth, and this one is weirder than all the rest. Most bursts last for just a few milliseconds, pulsing with such intensity that they shine as brightly as galaxies before vanishing. But this emission of radio waves lasted about 1,000 times longer: three whole seconds. And there was something unusual about the signal itself. Astronomers detected little pulses, peaking about every 0.2 seconds, within the three-second burst. Researchers had previously detected an FRB source that followed a discernible pattern, producing millisecond-long flickers for several days before quieting down and then starting back up again. But the flashes themselves were random. This was the first time that the signal itself exhibited such a precise rhythm.

"In FRB world, this is certainly big news," Sarah Burke-Spolaor, an astronomer at West Virginia University who studies FRBs and was not involved in the new detection, told me. "The main question we are still after with FRB is: What is making them? A strict periodicity like this would be major."

The existence of such a pattern supports the growing evidence that suggests the culprit behind FRBs is a neutron star, the leftover core of a once-giant star that has burned through its fuel. Professor Plum could be a pulsar, a type of neutron star that rotates fast and spits beams of radiation from its poles. Or Miss Scarlet could be a magnetar, another kind of neutron star, known for its powerful magnetic fields. "It is very difficult to contrive a natural clock like that, but pulsars are the only known emitting objects with enough momentum to behave that way," Burke-Spolaor said.

The researchers behind the detection didn't have enough to definitively pin the FRB on a pulsar, Shami Chatterjee, an astrophysicist at Cornell University and a co-author on the new research, told me. Nor do they have a good explanation for why this signal was so intense. Perhaps invisible gravitational forces magnified a pulsar's emissions as they headed our way, making them appear brighter to radio telescopes. Or maybe a magnetar is undergoing a giant flare. The latest detection bears some similarities to the radio emissions of pulsars and magnetars found in our own Milky Way galaxy, but the weird new signal seems, well, weirder. "The whole thing is just very peculiar," Chatterjee said.

Around this time, you might be thinking, Okay, so astronomers have their suspicions about what's responsible for FRBs, but they haven't solved the case. Add in the discovery of a surprisingly clear-cut pattern, and you might wonder: Could it be aliens? Sorry, no. "Periodic signals are very, very common from normal astronomical sources," Sofia Sheikh, an astronomer at the SETI Institute who works on the search for signs of advanced technology beyond Earth, told me. Such sources include pulsars and magnetars. "If the source was pulsing out the digits of pi or the Fibonacci sequence or something, then it would be a SETI story," Sheikh said.

If pulsars can indeed produce FRBs, astronomers can study these flashes to help them solve other cosmic mysteries. Scientists have already used the rhythms of less mysterious pulsars in the Milky Way as a kind of astrophysical clock, allowing them to do such various tasks as measure the mass of Jupiter, study the properties of the space between stars, and even discover an exoplanet made of diamond, Burke-Spolaor said. In the case of the diamond planet, which also began with an unusual signal, the clues quickly added up: When astronomers noticed some intriguing variation in the radio emissions of a pulsar 4,000 light-years away, they realized that the best explanation was the presence of a nearby planet. The planet, according to their analysis, was mostly made of carbon and oxygen, and dense enough to crystallize into a diamond world.

Astronomers hope they'll stumble across more FRBs like this one in their search of our cosmic grounds. The Canadian telescope that detected this burst is constantly looking out for more, and future observatories may discover thousands of them every month. "Every step of the way with FRBs, every answer we have gotten comes with so many more questions," Burke-Spolaor said. "This detection does the same." Astronomers have so far looked only for FRBs that last a few milliseconds because they didn't think the flashes could last much longer, and it's possible that "we could be missing a heap of FRBs that are seconds long," Vikram Ravi, an astronomer at Caltech who wasn't involved in the new research but who studies FRBs, told me. The story of FRBs is a long game, and scientists now know to expect sudden twists. The secret envelope remains unopened, but astronomers still have plenty of cosmic rooms to search, and every turn promises to reveal a new clue.

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source of strange flashes of radio signals

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powerful emissions of radio waves.but astronomers

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Seriously, What's Making All These Mysterious Space Signals?

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Astronomy can be, in some ways, a bit like the classic board game Clue. Scientists explore a sprawling but ultimately contained world, collecting pieces of information and testing out theories about a big mystery.

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Seventy-five years on from the first mysterious sightings in the US, the flying saucer makes its return in Jordan Peele's new film Nope. Nicholas Barber looks back at one of the most haunting objects in popular culture.

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It's only there for a moment i n the trailer for Jordan Peele's new horror film, Nope, but it's definitely there: a flying saucer. Judging by the twists and turns in Peele's previous films, Get Out and Us, it's impossible to say whether its real or fake, whether it's from the Earth or from outer space, but that glimpse of sparkling silver is tantalising. Maybe, just maybe, Nope will be a proper flying-saucer movie - a celebration of one of the most recognisable and spine-tingling shapes in the history of popular culture.

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"By the end of the 1950s," says Andrew Shail, senior lecturer in film at Newcastle University, "that particular shape had become a shorthand for 'spacecraft piloted by beings from another world', available to everyone working in the visual arts." Sure enough, flying saucers have signified mysterious visitors from Mars and beyond in countless films, TV series, novels, comics, and even hit records, from Mulder's I Want To Believe poster in The X-Files TV series to the popular children's picture book, Aliens Love Underpants. The flying saucer is a design classic - the archetypal Unidentified Flying Object. And yet it didn't take off, so to speak, until the 1950s, when the world went flying-saucer crazy.

Science-fiction artists had drawn circular spacecraft long before that: an early Flash Gordon strip from 1934 features a spinning "squadron of deadly space-gyros". But if you flick through copies of Startling Stories, Super Science Stories and other pulp magazines of the period, you'll see that in the first half of the 20th Century, aliens preferred their transport to resemble submarines and airships.

That all changed 75 years ago. In June 1947, a commercial pilot, Kenneth Arnold, claimed to have seen nine "flying discs" zipping across Washington state in the US at 1,200 mph. The editor of the East Oregonian newspaper sent this utterly unverifiable story to the Associated Press news service, and on 26 June, Hearst International put out a press release that contained the fateful term "flying saucers". The story spread around the globe considerably faster than 1,200 mph. Soon there were hundreds of other reported sightings - including one of crashed flying-saucer debris in Roswell, New Mexico. Some of these reports were clearly hoaxes: it wasn't hard to fake a saucer photograph if you had a hubcap, frisbee or pizza to hand. Some sightings, says Shail, were of "weather balloons, Zeppelins, cloud formations and experimental aircraft being developed by the US Air Force as part of the Cold War". And, just to be open-minded about it, perhaps some of the sightings were of Martians who were hovering over sparsely populated parts of the Earth for the fun of it. But one thing was certain: saucer-mania had begun.

In 1953, Donald H Menzel's book on this hysteria, Flying Saucers, offered three explanations. "First, flying saucers are unusual. All of us are used to regularity. We naturally attribute mystery to the unusual. Second, we are all nervous. We live in a world that has suddenly become hostile. We have unleashed forces we cannot control; many persons fear we are heading towards a war that will destroy us. Third, people are enjoying this fright to some extent. They seem to be a part of an exciting piece of science fiction."

The nervousness Menzel mentions had several causes. One was that the US and the USSR were competing to be the first superpower to put a satellite into orbit: the USSR won with Sputnik 1 in 1957. "Interest in flying saucers shot up around the same moment it became plausible that humans would visit space," says Katharine Coldiron, the author of the Midnight Movies Monograph guide to one notoriously terrible saucer movie, Plan 9 from Outer Space. "The human imagination spirals out in all sorts of directions when something like the space race radically stimulates it. I think we're seeing the same thing happen with climate change - creators of all kinds have been stimulated to make art about the possible end of our species, and, in fiction at least, we're just seeing that wave gain critical mass."

Americans had other things to worry about, too: unemployment, inflation, the threat of a Soviet invasion, and, especially, the possibility that their own cities might be razed by the kind of atomic bombs that had devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. One way of sublimating all that fear was to focus on flying saucers, "a phenomenon that was mysterious and entertaining," Jack Womack, an award-winning science-fiction author, tells BBC Culture, "but not necessarily threatening, unlike the possibility of nuclear war".
Flying saucers in popular culture
Almost as remarkable as all the saucer sightings was the fact that so many people wrote memoirs about them. Womack's collection of these memoirs is the subject of his book, Flying Saucers Are Real!, which includes excerpts from Those Sexy Saucer People, Flying Saucers and the Scriptures, and Round Trip To Hell in a Flying Saucer. One choice example is George W Van Tassel's I Rode a Flying Saucer, which was published in 1952. "He is honest enough to note that he didn't actually ride a flying saucer," says Womack, "but the space brothers suggested that he give his work a more marketable title." As ludicrous as many of these supposedly non-fiction books were, though, there were some learned theses among them. Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, pondered the topic in Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky, published in 1959.

By this time, flying saucers had flown all the way through popular culture. Comics, unsurprisingly, were bursting with saucers. One special issue of EC Comics' Weird Science-Fantasy in 1954 boasted: "EC Challenges The US Air Force With This Illustrated, Factual Flying Saucer Report." In the world of animation, Chuck Jones's Bugs Bunny cartoon, Haredevil Hare, introduced Marvin the Martian in 1948. He was piloting a Buck Rogers-style rocket ship on this occasion, but when Marvin visited Bugs on Earth in The Hasty Hare in 1952, he had traded up to a flying saucer.

In 1951, Ella Fitzgerald recorded a jazzy number written by Arthur Pitt and Elaine Wise called Two Little Men in a Flying Saucer, a satirical catalogue of humanity's off-putting habits, as seen by the little green men of the title: "During their mission / Heard a politician / Making speeches as they travelled by / But they departed / Faster than they started / Because the hot air blew them sky high." (The song has since been simplified into a nursery-school counting song.) But no medium was more besotted by flying saucers than cinema.

The first flying saucer film, called, yes, The Flying Saucer, came out in 1950. This was a low-budget independent thriller written, directed and produced by its star, Mikel Conrad, and marketed with the suggestion that it might be based on the truth. "What are they?," asked a poster's slogan. "Where are they from? Have you seen a flying saucer?" In the following year, 1951, Hollywood released two bona fide saucer classics. One was Robert Wise's The Day the Earth Stood Still, in which an alien ambassador named Klaatu (Michael Rennie) warns the human race to "live in peace, or pursue your present course and face obliteration". His smooth, windowless saucer is the last word in interplanetary minimalism. The other 1951 classic was Howard Hawks' The Thing from Another World, in which an alien spaceship is recovered from the Arctic ice. In the source material, a short story by John W Campbell, the spaceship is "like a submarine... 280 ft long and 45 ft in diameter", but in the film it's a saucer - and its one surviving crewmember is a monstrous predator. "In their own way, each of these films embodied the dark undercurrent of social paranoia that besieged America," writes Michael Stein in Alien Invasions! The History of Aliens in Pop Culture. "One evoked the fear of subversive invasion, the other addressed the nightmare of global destruction."

Considering how regularly flying saucers have been substitutes for more earthbound terrors, it will be fascinating to see what they represent in Nope. So far, Peele's ingenious horror movies have been cutting social commentaries, with an emphasis on the racism endured by black Americans. Will Nope continue this trend? "Peele's decision to make a UFO movie is unsurprising," says Mark Bould, the author of the Routledge Film Guidebook to Science Fiction, "because there has always been a racial element to accounts of flying saucers and alien abduction. In the late 1940s, the aliens were often described as exaggeratedly, excessively white people. African Americans are the descendants of abductees, the victims of technologically advanced pallid aliens who suddenly appeared from far away, and African-American science fiction and Afrofuturism frequently return to this brutal historical rupture. Nope is just the latest example to make this mothership connection."
The end of saucer-mania
Back in the 1950s, flying saucer films didn't always have such profound socio-political concerns. They included Devil Girl from Mars (1954), This Island Earth (1955), Forbidden Planet (1956), Invasion of the Saucer-Men (1957) and The Atomic Submarine (1959). One of the greatest was Earth Vs The Flying Saucers (1956), with typically fabulous stop-motion animation by Ray Harryhausen. One of the not-so-greatest was the aforementioned Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957).

What they all had in common was the saucer. From a filmmaker's perspective, this iconic spacecraft was a godsend, in that it was relatively easy to construct and shoot. Unlike a traditional rocket, it could switch direction without any need to show it turning around. It also looked fantastic.

"The great thing about flying saucer design is that it is simple to the point of abstraction," Bould tells BBC Culture. "Its perfect symmetry insists that it is not some naturally occurring thing, while the absence of familiar signifiers of flight - no wings, no engines - insists that it must be not only a technological artefact but an incredibly advanced one. It asserts its place far ahead of us in the western mythology of progress."

Not that the saucer was entirely other-worldly. Its shiny curved surface, behind which lurked all sorts of complicated wires and valves, reflected the most fashionable cars, ovens, and washing machines of the post-war period. "The flying saucer appears in an era of secretive new technologies, primarily military, including the atomic bomb," Bould tells BBC Culture, "but also a flood of new domestic consumer technologies, the inner workings of which become increasingly mysterious to the average householder. The flying saucer seems to incorporate both tendencies, writ large across American skies."

The flight didn't last for long. As the 1950s came to an end, saucer-mania waned, both in terms of reported sightings, and silver-screen appearances. "When it came to flying saucer movies, the horror ones did better than the serious ones," says Mark Jancovich, the author of Rational Fears: American Horror Genre in the 1950s. "And you could make the horror ones quite cheaply. What happened was that science-fiction horror moved into the cheap, low-budget end of the market. Studios also recognised that the really big sci-fi hit of the 1950s was not an alien invasion movie, it was Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. You then got this wave of period sci-fi films like The Time Machine, The Curse of Frankenstein and The Lost World [starring Klaatu himself, Michael Rennie]. The Victorian settings of gothic horror films made them seem respectable, whereas flying saucers moved downmarket as the 1950s went on."

Meanwhile, in the real world, 1961 was the year when Yuri Gagarin orbited the planet, and President John F Kennedy announced the goal of "landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth". Actual space travel was so astounding that flying saucers seemed quaint in comparison. Finally, in 1969, the US Air Force's survey of saucer sightings, Project Blue Book, closed with the publication of a Scientific Study of Unidentified Flying Objects. Its damning conclusion: "Nothing has come from the study of UFOs in the past 21 years that has added to scientific knowledge".

Of course, people kept reporting UFO sightings in the 1960s and beyond. This very May, there was an American public congressional hearing on what are now known as UAPs - Unexplained Aerial Phenomena - although Scott Bray, the deputy director of naval intelligence, stressed that the military hadn't found "anything non-terrestrial in origin". You could argue that in popular culture, too, flying saucers have never really gone away. Super-size a flying saucer and you get the motherships in Independence Day and District 9; flip it on its side and you get the looming monoliths in Arrival. In Star Wars, the Millennium Falcon is a flying saucer with some extra pointy bits poking out of the front; and in Star Trek, the USS Enterprise is a flying saucer with a body and legs stuck on the back. But sightings of old school, unadorned flying saucers, in the sky or on the screen, are now rare. "Like any fad," says Womack, "the phenomenon in its original form simply ran its course."

Today, flying saucers are a piece of quintessential 1950s Americana to file alongside a roadside diner's chequerboard floor and the tail fins of a gas-guzzling convertible. When they're used in modern science-fiction blockbusters, such as Men in Black and Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!, it's because of that vintage quality. Maybe that's how Jordan Peele will use them, too, sensitive as he is to America's historic injustices. Once the flying saucer seemed to have hurtled down from the frightening future; now it's a relic of the comforting past.
Nope is released on 22 July in the US, and on 12 August in the UK. Love film and TV? Join BBC Culture Film and TV Club on Facebook, a community for cinephiles all over the world. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter. And if you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called The Essential List. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

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It's only there for a moment i n the trailer for Jordan Peele's new horror film, Nope, but it's definitely there: a flying saucer. Judging by the twists and turns in Peele's previous films, Get Out and Us, it's impossible to say whether its real or fake, whether it's from the Earth or from outer space, but that glimpse of sparkling silver is tantalising.

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Apple AirTags: 5 Uncommon Places to Put Them

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Apple AirTags: 5 Uncommon Places to Put Them

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Put your AirTags to use and save yourself some hassle by knowing where these things are at all times.

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Apple AirTags: 5 Uncommon Places to Put Them

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Put your AirTags to use and save yourself some hassle by knowing where these things are at all times.

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To know the history of mammals is to know ourselves

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To know the history of mammals is to know ourselves

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Mammals have a history stretching back 325 million years. To study that ancient history is to know our own origins.

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Excerpted from the book THE RISE AND REIGN OF THE MAMMALS: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us by Steve Brusatte. Copyright © 2022 by Stephen (Steve) Brusatte. From Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.
For the first time in years, the sun broke through the darkness. There was still a whiff of smoke wafting from the gray clouds, which blanketed the ground in shadow. Down below, the land was wrecked. It was all dirt and mud, a wasteland absent any greenery or color whatsoever. Silence hung in the wind, punctured only by the churn of a river, its currents clogged with sticks and stones and the residue of decay.

The skeleton of a beast lay upon the riverbank. Its flesh and sinew were long gone, its bones a moldy beige. Its jaws were agape in a scream, its teeth busted and scattered in front of its face. Each one the size of a banana, with the sharp edges of a knife, the murder weapons this monster had used to dismember and crush the bones of its prey.

It was, once, a Tyrannosaurus rex, the tyrant lizard, the King of the Dinosaurs, the oppressor of a continent. Now its entire species was no more. And little else seemed to be alive.

Then, from somewhere within the behemoth, a soft sound. A clicking chatter, a flutter of footsteps. A tiny nose poked out between a couple of T. rex ribs, haltingly, as if afraid to go any farther. Its whiskers trembled, in expectation of danger, but it found none.

Time to come out of hiding. It leapt upward, into the light, and scurried onto the bones.

Clothed in fur, with bulging eyes and a snout full of teeth that looked like mountain peaks and a whiplash tail, this critter couldn't have been more different than a T. rex.

It paused for a moment to scratch the hair on its neck, turned its ear to the air, and scampered forward on all fours. Hands and feet planted firmly underneath its body, it moved fast, with purpose. Up the rib, across the backbone, and onto the dinosaur's skull.

There, on the side of the head, where the eye of this T. rex once glared at herds of Triceratops, the furball stopped. It looked back in the direction of the rib cage, and let out a high-pitched squeak. From the bowels of the beast, out bounded a dozen smaller furballs. They raced toward their mother, and latched onto her belly, lapping up a breakfast of milk as they experienced their first minutes aboveground.

As she nursed her babies, the mother stared into the sunlight. The world now belonged to her, and her family. The Age of Dinosaurs was over, put to rest with the fiery destruction of an asteroid and a long, dark, global nuclear winter. Now the Earth was healing. The Age of Mammals had begun.

Some 66 million years later, more or less, another mammal stood in the same spot, swinging a pickaxe. Sarah Shelley was my first PhD student after I started my job as a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. We were in New Mexico, on a fossil hunt, searching for the bones and teeth and skeletons that would help us understand how mammals survived the asteroid, outlasted the dinosaurs, and made the world their own, becoming the furry animals that we know, love, and sometimes fear today.

Mammals are the most charismatic and beloved creatures on the planet - with all due respect to reptiles and birds and the other eight-million-plus animal species that are not mammals. Perhaps this is because many mammals are simply cute and fluffy, but in part, I think it's because, on a deeper level, we can relate to them, and see ourselves in them. The cheetahs and gazelles locked in chase on the television screen, as David Attenborough's dulcet tones narrate the drama. The mother otter playing with her pups on the cover of a nature magazine. The elephants and hippos that make every child beg their parents to take them to the zoo, and the endangered pandas and rhinos that pull at our heartstrings when so many other appeals for charity might annoy us. The foxes and squirrels that tolerate our cities, the deer that encroach on our suburbs. Whales with bodies longer than basketball courts, emerging from the abyss to spray blowhole geysers several stories into the sky. Vampire bats that literally drink blood, lions and tigers that make our hair stand on end. Our cuddly pets, of the feline or canine or sometimes more exotic variety. For many of us, our food - beef burgers, pork sausages, lamb chops. And, of course, us. We are mammals, in the same way that a bear or a mouse is.

As a porcupine shaded itself from the New Mexico afternoon in the nook of a cottonwood, and a colony of prairie dogs chirped in the distance, Sarah brandished her pickaxe. Each strike into the rock released a haze of foul, sulfur-smelling dust. Each time she would wait for the dust to clear, to see if anything interesting had loosened from the Earth. For at least an hour, each strike brought only more rock. Until, with one thwack, something with a shape, a different texture, a different color poked out. She knelt down to take a look. And then hollered a victory cheer so loud, and so happily profane, that I can't repeat it here.

Sarah had found a fossil, her first major discovery as a student. I rushed over to see her prize, and she handed me a set of jaws, fused together at the tip. The teeth were coated in gypsum, and as they sparkled in the desert sun, I could see that there were sharp canines near the front and big, grinding molars at the back. Mammal! And not just any mammal, but one of the very species that assumed the crown from the dinosaurs.

We exchanged high fives, and got back to work.

Sarah's jaws belonged to a species called Pantolambda, and it was big, about the size of a Shetland pony. It lived just a couple million years after the dinosaur extinction, generations after that little mother peered out from the T. rex rib cage, in my fictional but credible story. Already, Pantolambda was considerably larger than any mammal that ever saw a T. rex or Brontosaurus. Some of those meek creatures - none bigger than a badger - endured the asteroid, by virtue of their smallness and adaptability, and suddenly found themselves in a dinosaur-free world. They grew in stature, and migrated, and diversified, and soon began forming complex ecosystems, replacing the dinosaurs - which had ruled the Earth for over 100 million years.

This particular Pantolambda lived in a jungle, on the edge of a swamp (hence the nasty odor of its entombing rocks). It was the largest herbivore of this environment. As it waded into the cooling waters after a lunch of leaves and beans, it would have seen or heard an abundance of other mammals. Overhead, kitty-size acrobats negotiated the tree branches with their grasping hands. At the swamp's edge, mutts with gargoyle faces burrowed into the mud, their claws seeking roots and tubers packed with nutrition. In the patchier parts of the forest, daintier ballerinas raced through the meadows on their hoofed toes. All the while, camouflaged in the thickest subtropical weeds of this Paleocene-aged jungle, a terror lurked: the apex predators, built like a stocky dog, with flesh-slicing teeth.

The death of the dinosaurs allowed these mammals - in ancient New Mexico and all around the world - to become ascendant. But mammals have a much deeper history. They - or rather, we - actually originated around the same time as the dinosaurs, over 200 million years ago, when all land was gathered together as one supercontinent, scorched by vast deserts. Those first mammals had an even deeper legacy, tracing back to about 325 million years ago, to a humid realm of coal swamps, when the ancestral mammal lineage split from the reptile line on the great family tree of life. Over these immense stretches of geological time, mammals developed their trademark features: hair, keen senses of smell and hearing, big brains and sharp intelligence, fast growth and warm-blooded metabolism, a distinctive lineup of teeth (canines, incisors, premolars, molars), mammary glands that mothers use to nourish their babies with milk.

From this long and rich evolutionary history came today's mammals. Right now, there are over six thousand mammal species sharing our world, our closest cousins among the millions of species that have ever lived. All modern-day mammals belong to one of three groups: the egg-laying monotremes like the platypus, marsupials like kangaroos and koalas that raise their tiny babies in pouches, and placentals like us, which give birth to well-developed young. These three types of mammals, though, are simply the few survivors of a once-verdant family tree, which has been pruned by time and mass extinctions.

At various points in the past, there have been legions of saber-toothed carnivores (not only the famous tigers, but also marsupials that turned their canines into spears), dire wolves, giant woolly elephants, and deer with ridiculously enormous antlers. There were supersized rhinos that lacked horns but sported long necks to guzzle leaves high in the treetops to sustain their nearly twenty-ton girth-mammals mimicking Brontosaurus, setting the record for largest hairy beasts to ever live on land. Many of these fossil mammals are familiar: they are icons of prehistory, stars of animated movies, and exhibits at any reputable natural history museum.

But even more fascinating are some of the extinct mammals that have never quite made it into pop culture stardom. There were once wee mammals that glided over the heads of dinosaurs and others that ate baby dinosaurs for breakfast, armadillos the size of Volkswagens, sloths so tall they could dunk a basketball, and "thunder beasts" with three-foot-long battering-ram horns. There were oddballs called chalicotheres that looked like an unholy horse-gorilla hybrid, which walked on their knuckles and pulled down tree branches with their stretched claws. Before it docked with North America, South America was an island continent for tens of millions of years, and hosted a whole family of wacky hoofed species whose Frankenstein mashup of anatomical features flummoxed Charles Darwin - and whose true relationships to other mammals has only just been revealed by the shocking discovery of ancient DNA. Elephants were once the size of miniature poodles, camels and horses and rhinos once galloped across an American savanna, and whales once had legs and could walk.

Clearly, the history of mammals is far bigger than the mammals we can see today, and it's about so much more than our own human origins and migrations over the last few million years. All of these fantastic mammals I've just mentioned, you'll meet in these pages.

I started my scientific career by studying dinosaurs. Growing up in the midwestern United States, it was T. rex that fascinated me most, and I went to college and did a PhD and carved out a niche as a dinosaur specialist. A few years ago, I told the story of dinosaur evolution, from their humble origins to apocalyptic ex-tinction, in my book The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs. I'll always love dinosaurs, and will continue to study them. But since I moved to Edinburgh and became a professor, I've started to drift. Perhaps it's logical: having studied the dinosaur extinction, I've become obsessed with what happened afterward. I've become obsessed with mammals.

Sometimes people ask me why. Children everywhere dream of growing up and digging up dinosaurs, so why do anything else? And why mammals? My retort is simple: dinosaurs are awesome, but they are not us. The history of mammals is our history, and by studying our ancestors, we can understand the deepest nature of ourselves. Why we look the way we do, grow the way we do, raise our babies the way we do, why we have back pain and need expensive dental work if we chip a tooth, why we are able to contemplate the world around us, and affect it so.

And if that's not enough, consider this. Some dinosaurs were huge, as big as Boeing 737 airplanes. The biggest mammals - blue whales and kin - are even larger. Imagine a world where mammals were extinct, and all we had were their fossil bones. No doubt they would be as famous, as iconic, as dinosaurs.

We're learning more about the history of mammals at breathtaking speed. More mammal fossils are being found than ever before, and we can study them with an array of technologies - CAT scanners, high-powered microscopes, computer animation soft-ware - to reveal what they were like as living, breathing, moving, feeding, reproducing, evolving animals. We can even get DNA from some mammal fossils - like those strange South American mammals that infatuated Darwin - which like a paternity test tells us how they are related to modern species. The field of mammal paleontology was founded by Victorian men, but is now increasingly diverse, and international. I've been privileged to have mentors who welcomed me - just another dinosaur guy - into their territory of mammal research, and now I find my greatest joy in mentoring the next generation, like Sarah Shelley (whose illustrations grace these pages!), and many other excellent students who will continue to write mammal history with their discoveries.

In this book, I will tell the story of mammal evolution, as we know it now. Roughly the first half of the book covers the early stages of the mammal lineage, from the time they split from the reptiles until the extinction of the dinosaurs. This was when mammals acquired nearly all of their signatures - hair, mammary glands, and so on - and morphed, piece by piece, from an ancestor that looked like a lizard into something we would recognize as a mammal. The book's second part lays out what happened after the dinosaurs died: how mammals seized the opportunity and became dominant, adapted to constantly changing climates, rode along on drifting continents, and developed into the incredible richness of species today: runners, diggers, flyers, swimmers, and big-brained book readers. In telling the tale of mammals, I want to convey how we've pieced together this story using fossil clues, and give you a sense of what it's like to be a paleontologist. I'll introduce you to my mentors, my students, and the people who have inspired me, and whose discoveries have provided the evidence that allows me to chronicle the narrative of mammalhood.

This book does not focus obsessively on humans; there are plenty of others that do. I will discuss human origins: how we emerged from primate antecedents, reared up on two legs, inflated our brains, and colonized the world-after living alongside many other early human species. But I'll do so in one chapter, and give humans about the same attention as horses and whales and elephants. After all, we are but one of many amazing feats of mammalian evolution.

Our story is one that needs to be told, however, because although we're only a single mammalian species and we've only been around for a fraction of mammalian history, we are impacting the planet like no mammal before. Our phenomenal success in building cities and growing crops and connecting the globe with highways and flight routes is having an adverse effect on our closest kin. More than 350 mammals have gone extinct since Homo sapiens came out of the forests and swept across the world, and many species are at high risk of extinction today (think tigers, pandas, black rhinos, blue whales). If things continue at the current pace, half of all mammals might succumb to the same fate as woolly mammoths and saber-toothed tigers: dead and gone, with only ghostly fossils to remind us of their majesty.

Mammals are at a crossroads, at the most precarious point in their - our - history since they - we - stared down the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. And what a history it has been. During our long evolutionary run, there have been times when mammals cowered in the shadows and times when they were dominant. Periods when they flourished and others when they were knocked back, and nearly knocked out completely, by mass extinctions. Eras when they were held in check by dinosaurs and eras when they were the ones doing the checking; times when none were bigger than a mouse and times when they were the biggest things that ever lived on Earth; times they weathered heat spikes and times they faced mile-thick glaciers, during the Ice Age. Times when they could occupy only the lower rungs of the food chain, and times when some of them - us - got conscious and became able to shape the entire Earth, in good and bad.

All of this history laid the foundation for today's world, for us, and our future.

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To know the history of mammals is to know ourselves

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Excerpted from the book THE RISE AND REIGN OF THE MAMMALS: A New History, from the Shadow of the Dinosaurs to Us by Steve Brusatte. Copyright © 2022 by Stephen (Steve) Brusatte. From Mariner Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission. For the first time in years, the sun broke through the darkness.

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The Toughest Mountain Bike Race in the World

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The Toughest Mountain Bike Race in the World

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In Kyrgyzstan, determined riders persevere through blizzards, lack of sleep, and disintegrating shoes.

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The Toughest Mountain Bike Race in the World

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Sleeping as little as possible was the French racer Sofiane Sehili's strategy. In 2020, he won Morocco's grueling Atlas Mountain Race by sleeping a total of two hours over four days. The ability to remove sleep from the equation meant that he was able to ride further than his rivals, adding six to 12 miles more than other riders each day.

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What to Do When You Never Feel Good Enough

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What to Do When You Never Feel Good Enough

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Are you stuck in constant self-judgment? In a new book, a clinical psychologist suggests a better way to feel good about yourself.

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Are you a good enough friend, employee, partner, or parent? Are you thin, attractive, smart, and nice enough?

If you have doubts about yourself, you're not alone. In fact, clinical psychologist Ronald D. Siegel has heard them from many of the clients he's worked with over nearly 40 years-and grappled with them himself, despite being an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

"I noticed that there was one painful struggle almost everyone seemed to share: the relentless quest to feel better about themselves," he writes in his new book The Extraordinary Gift of Being Ordinary.

In fact, he explains, most of us go about our days with "self-evaluative thoughts" rattling through our brains: concerns about our performance at work, disappointment about what we see in the mirror, judgments of our lovability based on the last conversation we had. Even when we feel good about ourselves, that feeling is fragile, ready to be shattered by the next blow to our self-image.

Instead of this self-referential chatter, Siegel suggests another way of being based on connecting with others rather than proving ourselves to them. His book offers tips for working with the feelings of "not good enough" and building a stable sense of happiness.

Why self-evaluation hurts

Although constantly evaluating our worth is exhausting, it's also very human. "The propensity to evaluate ourselves and compare ourselves to others, which was once useful for survival, is actually hardwired into the human brain," Siegel writes.

To win the evolutionary race and reproduce, early humans had to compete with others for status, Siegel explains. Comparing ourselves to others, now an unfortunate side effect of social media, was once a survival skill. And being exiled from the tribe was a matter of life and death, so fears of rejection linger.

Today, concerns about our adequacy can take different forms in each person. Maybe you want to feel special and get good grades, or be attractive and make more money. Maybe you just want to be liked and have enough friends. Or maybe what's important to you is feeling educated, creative, and talented enough.

In response to these feelings, Siegel explains, we try to do everything we can to prove to ourselves and others that we are these things: good, generous, strong, successful, sexy. But that doesn't work either.

"It's actually our relentless trying to feel good about ourselves that causes much of our distress," he writes.

For example, research suggests that people who pursue external rewards like fame, power, wealth, and beauty in order to be popular are more anxious, depressed, and discontent compared to those who are focused on personal growth, relationships, and helping others.

When our goals are external like that, we may find ourselves falling short all the time. There are always people doing better, so we can feel constantly judged. And if we ever hit a goal we had set for ourselves, we often just raise the bar again.

"Always performing, we rarely get a break to feel content or at peace," Siegel writes.

A preoccupation with being good enough can also get in the way of connecting with others. When we perceive any kind of criticism from friends or coworkers, we may feel threatened and get defensive.

Then, our habit of self-judgment can spill over into harshly judging others-which, surprise surprise, people don't really appreciate. And if we constantly feel insecure, we might try too hard to be liked, or be too afraid to put ourselves out there in the first place.

Over the years, writes Siegel, all those times when we felt not good enough become a "pool of accumulated sadness, hurt, and shame" that can be triggered by things that happen in our daily lives. That weight is hard to carry.

"Just think of how wonderful a day would be without worrying so much about how well you're doing and what others think of you, instead simply enjoying life," he writes.

How to feel good about yourself

Instead of trying to do more so we can finally feel worthy, writes Siegel, the solution lies in shifting the focus altogether: from self to others. That means building our relationships and practicing skills like compassion, gratitude, and forgiveness. In any given interaction, that means focusing on connecting rather than impressing.

You can also tackle your feelings of shame directly. As researcher Brené Brown has pointed out, shame thrives in secrecy, and Siegel encourages readers to share their imperfections and foibles with others. More often than not, you'll find that you're not alone, and we all have aspects of ourselves that we're less than proud of.

He also suggests having a bit of a dialogue with your inner critic, asking them: "What are you afraid would happen if you weren't doing such a good job criticizing me?" Then, you can turn to the wounded, insecure parts of yourself and ask: "What might you need right now?"

The goal, according to Siegel, is to develop " unconditional self-acceptance," an attitude similar to what you'd get from a good parent: "I'll love you no matter what." That doesn't mean we don't hold ourselves to certain standards, or feel disappointed when we fall short of them, but our missteps don't damage our value as a human being.

"We can work to develop this feeling of acceptance whether or not we behave intelligently, correctly, or competently and whether or not others respect, love, or approve of our behavior-separating our evaluation of our abilities and behaviors from this sense of meaning or worth," writes Siegel.

That's easier said than done, of course. One way to move toward this kind of self-acceptance is to realize that your self-standards may not be ones you chose in the first place; you may have unconsciously drifted from your core values as you moved through the world and were exposed to the opinions of others. For example, what do you think makes someone good and worthy, and where did those beliefs come from? What are the arbitrary rules that you expect yourself to follow?

He also suggests trying to be imperfect on purpose: missing an exit on the highway, singing in public, or not getting dressed up to leave the house. (If you're like me, that all sounds very cringey-which is a good sign we need it.)

"We can come to see that we're all just ordinary human beings who are smart but also dumb, conscientious but also lazy, skilled but also inept, adored and rejected, and all of this is in constant flux," Siegel writes.

Ultimately, he says, a sense of connection to all of humanity and to beings everywhere is what will most help us overcome our self-doubts. We'll see that everyone is just muddling along on this finite journey through life together.

Greater Good wants to know: Do you think this article will influence your opinions or behavior?

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What to Do When You Never Feel Good Enough

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Are you a good enough friend, employee, partner, or parent? Are you thin, attractive, smart, and nice enough? If you have doubts about yourself, you're not alone. In fact, clinical psychologist Ronald D. Siegel has heard them from many of the clients he's worked with over nearly 40 years-and grappled with them himself, despite being an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School.

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 How to See Things From Your Kid's Point of View

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 How to See Things From Your Kid's Point of View

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My 5-year-old daughter, Violet, was midway through kindergarten when she became obsessively worried about missing the bus. We've never actually missed the bus-we always pick out her clothes and pack her backpack the night before, and allow plenty of time for getting dressed and eating breakfast. But it didn't matter how organized we were or how well the rest of the morning went. In the final five minutes, when I needed my big girl to put on her coat and shoes while I strapped her younger sister into the stroller, she'd melt into a wailing puddle of frustration. I couldn't figure it out: Why was she was so fixated on missing the bus but unable to do the one simple thing to ensure that wouldn't happen?

"Anxiety can make us freeze," says Janet Lansbury, author of , who teaches parent-education classes in Los Angeles. "Yes, most kids can handle getting their coat and shoes on without help by kindergarten, but that ability is irrelevant when they're panicking." After talking to Lansbury, I realized how overwhelming the coat-and-shoes task felt from Violet's perspective. Just as her bus worry peaked, I stepped away to focus on her baby sister, leaving her alone in our mudroom to wrestle with zippers and Velcro while I got the stroller sorted in the garage. Then I came back and got annoyed when she wasn't ready yet, which made both of us more stressed.

Of course, the whole reason I wanted her to put on her coat and shoes by herself was that I felt daunted by the challenge of getting two kids out the door. "We have a very human tendency to approach any situation with the assumption that the other person is making things hard for us," says Lisa Damour, Ph.D., a Parents advisor and author of Under Pressure. "We know why we're doing what we're doing, so we figure it must be the child who isn't handling this well."

The next morning, I tried a different approach. As we entered the mudroom, I got down at Violet's level. "I need to put Beatrix in the stroller, but then I'll come back and help you get ready," I reassured her. "Do you want to start putting on your shoes?" She nodded, and by the time I'd finished with the baby, she was standing proudly with shoes, coat, backpack, and mittens all in place. I didn't need to put Violet's shoes on for her-I just had to put myself in them, so to speak, so she'd know she didn't have to manage the exit scramble alone. You can't stave off every meltdown, but seeing frustrating situations like these from your child's perspective will help you handle them with confidence.

What to Do If Your Child Refuses to Share Their Toys

Your Take: Your 3-year-old has been anticipating a playdate with their best friend all day. You've put away their most special toys and talked about sharing. However, in the middle of the playdate, your child refuses to share anything. What happened?

Your Child's Take: Your child is excited to see their friend and knows that sharing is part of the deal. But now they're realizing how much they don't like someone else touching their stuff. Your child may worry that sharing a toy means the friend will get to take it home-or your kid's grabby behavior may just mean they're getting bored. "Not sharing doesn't mean your child is selfish or unkind," says Parents advisor Wendy Mogel, Ph.D., author of Voice Lessons for Parents. "They may just need to move on to a new activity."

The Fix: "The moment when sharing breaks down is your cue to suggest a new game or take the kids outside," says Dr. Mogel. A change of scenery should reset their moods pretty quickly. If not, know that "taking turns" is an easier concept for kids to accept than sharing, says Parents advisor Eileen Kennedy-Moore, Ph.D., author of What's My Child Thinking? "Have them count to 20 or sing a song; when they finish, it's the other kid's turn with the toy."

What to Do If Your Child Acts Up In a Restaurant

Your Take: You picked a place that has a children's menu and ordered the mac 'n' cheese. Now your 5-year-old is sobbing because it's curly noodles, not elbows. Why do you even leave the house?

Your Child's Take: At home, you never ask them to sit at the table for an unspecified amount of time before the food arrives. And the mac 'n' cheese always looks exactly like what they expect. Now they're sitting in a grown-up chair that's too big or low for them. "Everything about a restaurant is unpredictable to kids who don't have a good grasp on how long things might take or why food looks and tastes different there," says Dr. Damour.

The Fix: Talk ahead of time about the restaurant routine: where you'll sit, how you'll order from a menu, and what the food may be like. If you don't know, it's fine to say, "We'll be surprised! But you won't have to eat anything you don't want." You should also ask your child "What do you want to do while we wait?" This lets them know that waiting is part of the deal. You can also bring a snack or feed your child something at home so they're not desperately hungry.

If a meltdown happens despite your best-laid plans, take your child out to the parking lot for a break. Once they've calmed down say, "I see you're frustrated that the meal is taking so long and you're having trouble waiting. It's not OK to disturb the other people in the restaurant." If they're ready to go back inside, remind them how they can handle the wait: "You can make a picture with the stickers we brought." Otherwise, just get your food to go. But don't frame it as a failure or punishment, says Dr. Kennedy-Moore. "Say, 'We'll eat at home, and you can try eating at the restaurant again another day,' so you leave the door open for better behavior in the future."

What to Do If Your Child Has the "Gimmes!" at the Grocery Store

Your Take: Your 2-year-old has picked up a colorful box of... tampons. Now they refuse to leave the store without them. (Yes, this scenario is based on a true story.)

Your Child's Take: You get to pick out anything you want and put it in the cart, but you want them to sit patiently and not touch while tons of cool things whiz by. Also, they have no idea how long this trip is going to take or why they can't eat the cereal them, at least not yet.

The Fix: Set expectations before you leave the house. If it's just a quick trip, say, "We're only going in for XYZ," and involve your child in helping you find items on that list. On the other hand, if you're meandering around Target on a Saturday afternoon and might buy an extraneous throw pillow or two, consider letting your child spend a few dollars as well. "If I'm making impulse purchases, it's not really fair to expect my kids to have total self-control," says Dr. Damour.

When your child gets fixated on an item that's beyond his budget or the scope of your shopping trip, you can feel good about saying no. "It's OK for kids to want things, but they can also learn that wanting doesn't always lead to having," says Dr. Kennedy-Moore. Toddlers don't understand that money isn't unlimited, so you can just say, "Not today!" It may also be helpful to acknowledge why he wants it: "I can see why you like that. It's so shiny!" If your gets upset, verbalize that frustration: "You wish we could take it home with us." Another smart strategy is to engage in his fantasy about the item: "Wouldn't it be fun if we could buy all the stuffed animals in the store! Where would we put them all? Your bed would be so crowded."

What to Do If Your Child Freak-Outs About Dogs, the Dark, Bugs, and Other Like Things

Your Take: You've demonstrated over and over to your 3-year-old that the neighbor's poodle won't bite or that there really aren't any monsters under the bed. But they still go into hysterics when faced with these irrational fears.

Your Child's Take: Your child can't fathom why you're so calm when that dog is so big and so loud. Dr. Damour puts it in perspective: "I'd be anxious if anytime I walked outside I might encounter a horse that wanted to put its nose and teeth near my face!" Fears grow along with your child's imagination. Now they can imagine what might be under the bed or in the toilet. But they don't know enough about the world to understand why, say, an alligator is real but a monster isn't, or be sure that neither of them will be hiding in a dark room.

The Fix: Avoid conveying your own anxiety. "If you pick your child up whenever you see a dog, you're letting her know you're worried too," says Lansbury. "Just stand next to them so you can block the dog with your body." For automatic-flushing toilets, put your hand or a Post-it over the sensor.

That said, no matter what you do don't dismiss your child's fears or try to talk them out of it. "If you are dismissive of your child's fears, they will feel like they need to keep an even tighter grip on it because you aren't getting it," says Dr. Damour. Acknowledge it as matter-of-factly as possible: "You're afraid of the dark? Well, let's figure out what to do because it gets dark every night." Follow up with increasingly playful questions: "Is the monster furry? What sound does it make?" You won't make her fear more real by validating it; you'll let your child know it's OK to vent their feelings and may transition the fear from scary to silly. Then, build confidence through baby steps. If you've been lying down with your child until they fall asleep, for example, sit in a chair for a few nights, then outside the door. "Do it gradually, but stay the course," says Dr. Kennedy-Moore. This lets them know that you believe they can cope with the challenge, even if it's tough at first.

A version of this article originally appeared in Parents magazine's May 2020 issue as "Think Like Your Kid." Want more from the magazine? Sign up for a monthly print subscription here.

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How to See Things From Your Kid's Point of View

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My 5-year-old daughter, Violet, was midway through kindergarten when she became obsessively worried about missing the bus. We've never actually missed the bus-we always pick out her clothes and pack her backpack the night before, and allow plenty of time for getting dressed and eating breakfast.

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Railways in Europe are many things. With their grand stations, history and evocative destinations, they evoke a timelessness that is absent from the uniform experience of flying. In recent decades, high-speed services have complemented classic routes, while the demand for more climate-friendly travel has grown and new options have sprung up, including a recent wave of night trains.

Lonely Planet, which for nearly 50 years has championed a down-to-earth, connected style of travel, has produced a new Guide to Train Travel in Europe aimed at unlocking adventures by rail from any starting point on the continent. Here the authors pick fantastic journeys from the book.

Paris to Berlin - fast or slow

A well-established network of high-speed trains and a huge choice of slower options connects two of Europe's great cities. A glorious three-country tour would allow you to head from Paris to Brussels, travelling on to Cologne via the space-age architecture of Liège-Guillemins station. Cologne's cathedral is so close to the station you can hardly miss popping in before boarding an onward ICE German fast service to the capital, which takes less than five hours. To see more than the immediate surroundings of the station buildings in each city, book separate tickets for each leg at trainline.com, or add in a stop of a few hours or an overnight booking via Deutsche Bahn ( bahn.de). A high-speed connection from Paris via Frankfurt is also possible.

Amsterdam to Vienna on the Nightjet

One of several recent additions to Europe's sleeper train scene, the Nightjet service operated by Austrian Railways ( oebb.at) departs every evening at 7pm or 7.30pm from Amsterdam. As you doze off, the train will trundle alongside the Rhine, passing Cologne and Koblenz, then continuing south-east through Germany and entering Austria at Passau. A 9.19am arrival in Vienna ensures time for a lie-in and breakfast. This train can easily be combined with the Eurostar service from London or a ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam, or from Harwich to Hoek van Holland.

Loop the loop in North Wales

Some of the world's most beautiful narrow-gauge railways can be found in Wales and two of the best can be combined in a loop that takes in the mountains and coastal scenery of Snowdonia. Catch a service from Llandudno Junction - which has main line connections - down the Conwy valley to Blaenau Ffestiniog. Change for the celebrated Ffestiniog Railway, a distinctive steam-hauled service that winds 13 miles down to the coast at Porthmadog. Return via the sublime steam service of the Welsh Highland Railway under the summit of Snowdon to Caernarfon, where you can catch a bus to Bangor and main line services.

From Bastia to Ajaccio through the Corsican interior

The Chemins de Fer de la Corse ( Corsican Railways) is a narrow-gauge railway centred on Ponte Leccia - from where three main lines head to Ajaccio, Bastia and Calvi, all providing incredible views of beautiful and rugged terrain. The route linking Ajaccio and Bastia is the longest and most celebrated, taking three and a half hours, so is best done with an overnight stop, rather than attempted as a day trip. Corsica is well served by ferries from mainland France such as Toulon, Marseille and Nice, opening up a tempting train-and-ferry route from the UK.

Dublin to Madrid by train and ferry

It is possible to head from Dublin direct to mainland Europe. A largely single-track line skirts the Irish Sea heading south as far as Wicklow before veering inland and stopping in the appealing county town of Wexford, set on the estuary of the River Slaney. It's a short hop along the tracks from there to the port of Rosslare for the twice-weekly ferries to Bilbao, which take about 30 hours. Then it's a five-hour rail journey on to Madrid. Recommended stops take in Burgos's treasured cathedral, the former Spanish capital of Valladolid and Segovia's Roman aqueduct and Alcázarfortress.

Venice to Palermo - across the water in Italy

Heading from top to toe in Italy, this dramatic journey's potential stopping points need no introduction. Fast Frecciarossa trains connect Venice to the gastronomic centre of Bologna in 90 minutes, with Florence 40 minutes down the line. An hour and a half further on you're in Rome. From here the south of Italy opens up. For one of Europe's most unusual rail experiences take a train service all the way to Sicily. At Villa San Giovanni in Calabria, you and your carriage board a dedicated ferry to Messina, in Sicily, from where the hectic fun of Palermo is a slow-rolling four and a half hours' ride away along the coast. There are several daily intercity and night services that run from the mainland, via the ferry, through to the Sicilian capital including sleepers direct from Milan, Genoa and Pisa.

From coast to coast, via a mountain high - Oslo to Bergen

A contender for Europe's best train trip, the Bergen Line ( Bergensbanen) thunders past southern Norway's mountains and lakes between Oslo and Bergen, reaching 1,222m at Finse station, where a snowball fight is generally on offer. The trip takes nearly seven hours, which passes quickly in a blur of incredible scenery on a comfortable intercity service. There's scope to do a longer version of this route taking the Norway in a Nutshell tour, which includes the Flåm Railway - possibly the world's most scenic branch line - and a boat journey through Nærøyfjord and Aurlandsfjord.

Paris to Barcelona on the slow train

These cities are linked by a fast train, but there's a leisurely route south through France to the Pyrenees via Limoges, Toulouse and through magnificent rural and mountain scenery to Latour-de-Carol. While it's possible to reach Latour-de-Carol by direct night train from Paris, you would miss the slowly unfolding views you can enjoy when doing this journey in daylight. From Latour-de-Carol a commuter line runs all the way to Barcelona and takes just over three hours. Possible stops along the way include fortified Ribes de Freser and Ripoll, home to an ancient monastery and a good starting point for hiking trails.

Budapest to Split on a sleeper

During the summer there's a tempting night service between Hungary's capital and the Adriatic. In recent years the train has left Budapest at midnight, getting into Split after lunch. En route it passes the Hungarian holiday playground of Lake Balaton and Zagreb, Croatia's capital. Once on the Adriatic coast, buses head south to Dubrovnik, while ferries and catamarans radiate out to nearby islands.

Locarno to Domodossola through the Swiss Alps

Pretty much any journey in Switzerland promises jaw-dropping scenery, and on several routes trains run slowly specifically to show off the mountains, rivers and lakes that can be seen from the window. Travelling between Locarno in Switzerland to Domodossola in the Piedmont region of Italy, the Centovalli (Hundred Valleys) Railway is a short but scenic service past 52km of waterfalls, chestnut groves, church-topped villages, deep ravines and vineyards. Highlights include the Isorno Bridge near the village of Intragna and Intragna's gorge.
These routes, plus tips on rail travel, are featured in Lonely Planet's Guide to Train Travel in Europe and Oliver Smith (£19.99), available at shop.lonelyplanet.com

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Railways in Europe are many things. With their grand stations, history and evocative destinations, they evoke a timelessness that is absent from the uniform experience of flying. In recent decades, high-speed services have complemented classic routes, while the demand for more climate-friendly travel has grown and new options have sprung up, including a recent wave of night trains.

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We are also very impressed with the Samco team and the innovation.

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We are also very impressed with the Samco team and the innovation.

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“Samco has had an impressive growth trajectory since its inception in 2015. We are also very impressed with the Samco team and the innovation that they have brought to the plate in an otherwise cluttered market,” Siddharth Mehta, former Director of IL&FS, said. “They understand the complex requirements of the market and have been successful in delivering unique solutions.”

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ThinkStock Photos
The brokerage, which competes with the likes of Bengaluru-based Zerodha, will use the proceeds towards building a mutual fund distribution platform.

NEW DELHI: Samco Ventures, which owns and operates online discount broker Samco Securities and mobile trading platform StockNote, has raised $7.5 million (Rs 49 crore) in a fresh round of funding.

The Series-B round of equity financing is an internal round that was led by the company existing investor, mid-market private equity firm Bay Capital Investments, with the promoters of the Mumbai-headquartered company also participating. The brokerage, which competes with the likes of Bengaluru-based Zerodha, will use the proceeds towards building a mutual fund distribution platform, lending capabilities, as well as its research and advisory businesses.

"Samco has had an impressive growth trajectory since its inception in 2015. We are also very impressed with the Samco team and the innovation that they have brought to the plate in an otherwise cluttered market," Siddharth Mehta, founder of Bay Capital, said. "They understand the complex requirements of the market and have been successful in delivering unique solutions."

The latest round of funding, which also saw participation from company's other existing backers, including the Modi family and other high-net-worth individuals, including Indian cricketing legend Kapil Dev, comes about two years after it raised its previous round of $3 million in fiscal 2016.

"(We) look forward towards addressing the problems that the trading and investing industry is plagued with, and ensure low-cost access to capital markets is available for every Indian," Jimeet Modi, chief executive of SAMCO Securities and StockNote, said.

The company, which claims to service over 75,000 customers, also recently launched StockNote, a content streaming and trading platform that aggregates and delivers news and information about stocks and sectors across India.

Founded by Siddharth Mehta and Puneet Saraogi, Bay Capital operates, both, a private equity, as well a long-only public markets investment practice.

The investment firm's portfolio includes Sterling Holiday Resorts, Vini Cosmetics, IL&FS Energy, Intellivate Capital Ventures and the South and West India franchisee for McDonald's Westlife Leisure Resorts, according to VCCEdge.

More recently, the investment firm also reported to be picking up a controlling stake in the Malvinder and Shivinder Singh-promoted Religare Enterprises, in which it held a 10% stake. Post the ouster of the Singh brothers, in February earlier this year, Mehta was named as a non-executive, non-independent director of the beleaguered financial services company.

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Samco Ventures raises Rs 49 crore in Series-B

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NEW DELHI: Samco Ventures, which owns and operates online discount broker Samco Securities and mobile trading platform StockNote, has raised $7.5 million (Rs 49 crore) in a fresh round of funding. The Series-B round of equity financing is an internal round that was led by the company existing investor, mid-market private equity firm Bay Capital Investments, with the promoters of the Mumbai-headquartered company also participating.

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The nature and shape of the Indian economy and financial markets will be very different in 2030 than they are today."

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The nature and shape of the Indian economy and financial markets will be very different in 2030 than they are today."

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Today, the digital ecosystem has evolved, and many segments have consolidated with clear leaders emerging. Across the globe, the nature of digital economy dictates that the consumer would tend to gravitate towards fewer platforms. Within this, leadership businesses will end up having far larger share of traffic, revenue as well as profit pool! Many large digital, consumer tech companies are already profitable on EBITDA level and PAT profits look imminent. Quite a few of these franchises plan to list in the next 12-24 months and will be very well sought after by public market investors due to the growth and profitability profile.

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Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 30 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Siddharth Mehta IL & FS Former Director and currently Founder and CIO of Bay Capital believes that "Businesses will need to think 'digital' if they are to compete and grow over the next decade."

Siddharth Mehta is very excited about investing in the Indian market rather than any other emerging and developed one. Because India has seen a tremendous increase in the overall penetration of the internet owing to strong growth in low-cost smartphones, a significant reduction in data prices, the creation of an ecosystem of products and services driven by the government's digital initiatives, and the development of low cost, robust payment systems. Today, there are over 758 Mn internet users in India with ~700 Mn smartphones. In fact, the average data consumption per user per month in India is the highest in the world at ~13.5 GB and Indians spend almost 6.5 hours per day online.

Talking about its initiation towards being digital and its impact on the market is tremendous. Over the course of the last decade, India has laid down the digital infrastructure pipelines - so much so, that today Digital activity has become part of daily lives of over half the country and has enabled India to circumvent the challenges posed by its poor physical infrastructure. Be it bank accounts, KYCs, daily transactions, accessing government services, education services, and even COVID vaccinations, all of this is now digitally led in India. Just to put things in perspective, India has the highest volume of real time payment transactions with over 25 Bn transactions in 2020. China was next at about 16 Bn transactions in 2020!

In such a scenario, it can be said that India is now on the path to becoming the largest digitize business hub in less than twenty years. COVID-19 also plays an essential role to help India in rolling out the digitalization aspects. It has acted as an accelerator for the adoption of the digital economy. In every sector and in every business aspect, digital activity has become extremely important and relevant as this was the only way for consumers to access products and services and for businesses to operate.

Pandemic has accelerated growth in the digital space!

Siddharth Mehta founder and CIO of Bay Capital said that "The digital transformation of India is only just accelerating, and we believe the internet economy could grow 10x in 10 years from here on (to get to more than USD 800 billion), resulting in many large businesses accreting significant shareholder wealth. The nature and shape of the Indian economy and financial markets will be very different in 2030 than they are today."

Today, the digital ecosystem has evolved, and many segments have consolidated with clear leaders emerging. Across the globe, the nature of digital economy dictates that the consumer would tend to gravitate towards fewer platforms. Within this, leadership businesses will end up having far larger share of traffic, revenue as well as profit pool! Many large digital, consumer tech companies are already profitable on EBITDA level and PAT profits look imminent. Quite a few of these franchises plan to list in the next 12-24 months and will be very well sought after by public market investors due to the growth and profitability profile.

In the last 20 years, technology has leapfrogged significantly and digital has become a part of our daily lives. With each passing moment, consumer awareness and dependence on internet is only increasing and this has led to rapid decline in customer acquisition costs and increased the overall Life Time Value of the customer for digital businesses. The impact of this has not been lost on the overall investment community as well. Focusing on investment opportunities in India's internet/digital ecosystem as a result of digital transformation, Siddharth Mehta of Bay Capital has stated that "Yes, indeed, there are many outstanding businesses that have created tremendous scale and are seeing their paths to profitability getting accelerated. We are particularly interested in those businesses that are solving uniquely Indian problems in uniquely Indian ways and those that are targeting the next billion internet users in India."

The initiative towards Digital activities of several investors such as Siddharth Mehta IL & FS Former Director will change the overall scenario of digital transformation in business very dramatically in 3-5 years.

This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/BusinessWire India)

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The Pandemic Has Accelerated Growth in the Digital Space, Says Siddharth Mehta, Former Director, IL & FS

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Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 30 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Siddharth Mehta IL & FS Former Director and currently Founder and CIO of Bay Capital believes that "Businesses will need to think 'digital' if they are to compete and grow over the next decade."

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We are also very impressed with the Samco team and the innovation.

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We are also very impressed with the Samco team and the innovation.

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“Samco has had an impressive growth trajectory since its inception in 2015. We are also very impressed with the Samco team and the innovation that they have brought to the plate in an otherwise cluttered market,” Siddharth Mehta, founder of Bay Capital, said. “They understand the complex requirements of the market and have been successful in delivering unique solutions.”

Read more at:
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/small-biz/startups/newsbuzz/samco-ventures-raises-rs-49-crore-in-series-b/articleshow/63966950.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

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Insomnia: How to Rewire Your Brain for Sleep

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Insomnia: How to Rewire Your Brain for Sleep

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Once your brain is wired to fret about being able to fall asleep, it takes effort to rewire neural pathways for restful sleep.

Insomnia can arise from several causes. However, worrying is one of the most frequent reasons people suffer from chronic sleep loss. If your mind boosts into overdrive when your head hits the pillow, conjuring mountains from molehills, no wonder you have difficulty getting to sleep.

Here’s how to stop anxiety stealing shuteye. First, though, you’re more likely to rewire your brain for sleep if you recognize why it’s currently wired for insomnia.

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Insomnia can arise from several causes. However, worrying is one of the most frequent reasons people suffer from chronic sleep loss. If your mind boosts into overdrive when your head hits the pillow, conjuring mountains from molehills, no wonder you have difficulty getting to sleep.

Here's how to stop anxiety stealing shuteye. First, though, you're more likely to rewire your brain for sleep if you recognize why it's currently wired for insomnia.

Repetition creates neural pathways

Repeated behaviors, such as worrying at night, turn into habits. Your brain is wired for insomnia if you've spent numerous nights wide awake, fretting about problems. Just as it takes time to generate neural pathways in the brain via repetition, it takes a while to override old tracks and create new, preferable ones.

The following tips can help you get to sleep, but they might not work instantly. Instead, be patient and carry them out until they are habitual. Once you've forged fresh neural connections, it will be easier to sleep every night.

Create a routine to help you relax

Anxiety increases when you go to bed because you expect to stay awake. After all, that's what usually happens. So, as stress keeps you alert when you want to sleep, you don't want to stimulate angst.

Follow a routine to teach your mind and body to relax when bedtime's close rather than increase stress and endure insomnia. Carrying out similar habits each night will put you in the mood to shut down your busy mind and rest.

Your routine might include using calming lavender essential oil in a hot bath an hour before bed and then settling down to read. Or, you might prefer to listen to soothing music, write in a journal, or do something else relaxing before turning in for the night.

Reduce expectations

If you expect to encounter insomnia, your anxiety will grow. People who find it hard to sleep often tell themselves they must fall asleep instantly when they go to bed, imagining they can force the issue. But doing so creates resistance and strain.

Rather than put pressure on yourself to sleep, imagine you are going to rest and enjoy peaceful thoughts. Your change of attitude will help to override old neural paths in your brain and make way for the new habit of sleeping.

Calm your worries

When stress rises as you try to sleep, recall there's never a sane reason to worry. Going over problems isn't logical and won't help.

Bear in mind difficulties fall into one of two categories:

1. You have the power to alter problems and make positive changes.

2. You can't do anything about the challenges you face.

Consequently, you can modify the cause of angst and eliminate the difficulty. Or accept that you can't make changes and must accept the situation. Either way, you have no reason for anxiety.

Slow your thoughts

Calm your system ready for sleep further with a gentle, mindful exercise. When in bed, let thoughts appear and acknowledge them. When you note them, imagine they shrink, float away, or disappear. Use your mind to picture their insignificance fading.

Initially, the exercise might not be easy, but practice, and you'll see positive results. The same goes if thoughts flow as self-talk. Reduce their volume or change them to make them funny; concerns aired as a squeaky cartoon character voice, for instance, will lose their importance and disappear.

Focus on your body

Next, concentrate on physical experience rather than mental noise. Think about your body, starting at your feet, and imagine your muscles relaxing. Work slowly up to the crown of your head while also following your breath. There'll be no room for worries to stream, and you'll become sleepy.

Worrying can keep you awake and steal much-needed shuteye. Note the suggestions mentioned in the order provided, and you will rewire your brain to help you sleep well.

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Insomnia: How to Rewire Your Brain for Sleep

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Insomnia can arise from several causes. However, worrying is one of the most frequent reasons people suffer from chronic sleep loss. If your mind boosts into overdrive when your head hits the pillow, conjuring mountains from molehills, no wonder you have difficulty getting to sleep. Here's how to

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The only way to an optimal routine is through astute self-awareness and experimentation.

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Marina Koren wrote in The Atlantic that, "My mornings are the messiest part of my day. I do not rise and shine. Instead, I hit snooze on the alarm and throw the covers over my head." This, Koren goes on, causes her distress because "it never seems to be the case with other people's morning routine." Koren is referencing the deluge of morning-routine media and advice, including The Cut's " How I Get It Done" column, The New York Times' Sunday Routine specials, roundups in news outlets ranging from CNN toVogue, #routine Instagram posts, and the endless instruction from self-improvement podcasters.

Morning routines are having a moment. And it's easy to feel that if you don't have one, you should. Or else you'll fall behind, or worse, be miserable. But, as is usually the case with these things, the truth is a bit more complicated and a lot more freeing.

The research on routines is clear. They are indeed effective. They help you activate when you're feeling low, automate decisions so you don't burn willpower, and prime your mind-body system to more easily groove into the task at hand. If you work out every morning, you don't have to think about working out, you just do it. And, if you're like most people, you feel much better afterward, regardless of how you were feeling before.

Research on "affordances" shows that physical objects and surroundings can help elicit certain behaviors. For example, the more you pair going to a specific coffee shop at a specific time of day and using a specific computer with writing, the easier it becomes to get into a productive creative rhythm.

But here's the catch: Although routines can be magical, there is no magic routine. What works for one person might not work for others. This is problematic for those in the cult of routines, especially those looking to make a buck selling their own.

Different people have different chronotypes, a term which describes the natural and unique ebb and flow of energy that individuals experience over the course of 24 hours. Whether it's a physically or cognitively demanding task, science has shown that most people tend to perform their best either in the earlier part of the day or in the later part of the day. Scientists refer to those who are most alert in the morning as larks and those who are most alert in the evening as owls. These individual differences are rooted in our bodies' unique biological rhythms-when various hormones associated with energy and focus are released and when our body temperatures rise and fall. There is no evidence that either way of being is inherently better. There is, however, evidence that fighting against your biology is detrimental.

Other research shows that many of the typical features of "optimal routines" affect different people differently. Some people perform better while listening to music. Others do not. Some people get a boost from caffeine. Others experience anxiety or an upset stomach.

The bottom line is that the only way to an optimal routine is through astute self-awareness-not mimicking what other people do-and experimentation. The more you can match your activities to your energy levels, the better. The more you can figure out which types of environments stimulate your best work, the better.

There are, of course, certain behaviors that are close to universally effective, such as exercise and sleep. But again: there is no optimal time, place, or way to engage in these behaviors. You've got to figure out what works for you.

There is also a danger in becoming overly attached to your routine. If for whatever reason you can't stick to it-you're traveling, your special coffee shop closes, whatever elixir you order from your favorite podcast's advertising goes out of business-you won't know what to do. It's like a Zen koan: The first rule of routines is to develop one and stick with it. The second rule is to cultivate the capacity to easily release from it.

I don't have a special routine that will dramatically change your life. But you could develop your own that would. Just make sure that you're willing, and able, to let it go.
Brad Stulberg researches and writes on sustainable excellence and wellbeing. He is bestselling author of the new book, The Practice of Groundedness: A Path to Success that Feeds-Not Crushes-Your Soul.

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Marina Koren wrote in The Atlantic that, "My mornings are the messiest part of my day. I do not rise and shine. Instead, I hit snooze on the alarm and throw the covers over my head." This, Koren goes on, causes her distress because "it never seems to be the case with other people's morning routine."

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 In Egypt's ‘Land of Death,’ Dinosaurs Were Supersized—and Hungry 

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 In Egypt's ‘Land of Death,’ Dinosaurs Were Supersized—and Hungry 

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The new find is the latest addition to a nightmarish roster of predators that terrorized the oasis almost 100 million years ago. Since Stromer’s historic expeditions into the valley, Bahariya has become a paleontological hotspot, yielding an unusual number of fossils of large theropod dinosaurs. As more details of the location’s geological and ecological past emerge, scientists are starting to understand why: Bahariya’s ancient environment was perfect for both supporting huge predators and preserving bones as fossils.

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When Belal Salem visited the Bahariya Oasis for the first time, he felt he was on hallowed ground. Traveling deep into Egypt’s Western Desert to a sprawling valley dotted with guava and mango farms, Salem was retracing the steps taken more than a century earlier by German paleontologist Ernst Stromer, whose team had discovered some of the largest predatory dinosaurs ever found. The experience was overwhelming for Salem, a master’s student in vertebrate paleontology at Mansoura University in the country’s north. “I couldn’t feel my legs,” he says. Though he felt the weight of Stromer’s accomplishments, Salem was determined to make his own contribution to the field.

Salem got his chance recently when he and colleagues identified a new dinosaur from Bahariya based on a distinctive single bone. It took two years for the team to free the specimen, found in 2016, from surrounding sedimentary rock and iron. Once exposed, says Salem, the fossil was unmistakable: a vertebra from a theropod. This group includes all known carnivorous dinosaurs, from velociraptors to T. rex. The tall, thin shape of the neural arch—the ring of bone that held the spinal cord in place—established that the specimen belonged to a minibus-sized theropod called an abelisaurid, possibly a scavenger or small-game hunter. Salem and his coauthors described the discovery in a paper recently published in Royal Society Open Science.

The new find is the latest addition to a nightmarish roster of predators that terrorized the oasis almost 100 million years ago. Since Stromer’s historic expeditions into the valley, Bahariya has become a paleontological hotspot, yielding an unusual number of fossils of large theropod dinosaurs. As more details of the location’s geological and ecological past emerge, scientists are starting to understand why: Bahariya’s ancient environment was perfect for both supporting huge predators and preserving bones as fossils.

Gebel el Dist, in the northern part of the Bahariya Oasis, overlooks a particularly fossil-rich part of the region. Ahmedherz, CC BY-SA 4.0/Wikimedia

Stromer was the first paleontologist to conduct fieldwork in the area; his finds included Carcharodontosaurus and Bahariasaurus, large theropods which were comparable in size to their very distant cousin T. rex. Other specimens were utterly strange, such as Spinosaurus, a skilled swimmer with long jaws and a distinctive sail on its back—and at about 50 feet long, the largest predatory dinosaur ever known. The discoveries painted a terrifying picture of the oasis in the deep past. “I call it the land of death,” says Salem. “If you escaped from Bahariasaurus, you would find Carcharodontosaurus or Spinosaurus…and all of them are trying to eat.”

Stromer took the fossils back to Germany, but they were destroyed in a fire when the Allies bombed Munich in 1944. “The Bahariya dinosaurs went extinct twice in some ways,” says Matthew Lamanna, coauthor and a paleontologist at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History. The original specimens survive only in photos and illustrations, but subsequent discoveries by other paleontologists have helped to replace some of what was lost, and to understand the oasis as it was during the Cretaceous.

Bahariya had long puzzled scientists because of the conundrum, known as Stromer’s Riddle, raised by its fossil record: There was an abundance of large predators, but an apparent lack of large prey. What were all these monstrous meat-eaters hunting? In 2000, Lamanna was part of a team that helped answer that question with the discovery of Paralititan stromeri. The long-necked sauropod was about 85 feet long, making it one of the largest dinosaurs that ever lived—and, in Lamanna’s words, a “giant hamburger” for hungry theropods.

The environment that supported these massive animals had little in common with today’s desert oasis. About 100 million years ago, the area was a sweltering tropical coast, similar to modern Florida but with thick forests of ferns in place of mangroves. The abundant plant life in the oasis would have kept herbivore populations strong, ensuring plenty of food for the predators that made the oasis their hunting grounds.

Mansoura University paleontology student Belal Salem with the vertebra he identified as belonging to a new, as-yet-unnamed predatory dinosaur. Courtesy Belal Salem

Dinosaurs weren’t the only giants around. The area had a mix of freshwater and saltwater environments, says University of Pennsylvania paleontologist Barbara Grandstaff. The ecosystems were home to fish such as Bawitius, which grew as long as 10 feet and was covered in heavy enameled scales. These animals lived alongside crabs, crocodiles, and large turtles, and would have been prey for Spinosaurus, the only known aquatic dinosaur.

Some of the fossil fauna unearthed at Bahariya have been found at other sites, such as Morocco’s Kem Kem beds, which are about the same age. But Kem Kem appears to have had fast-flowing streams and rivers, which pulled carcasses apart and scattered the bones over a wide area, often leaving paleontologists with only a few fragments. What sets Bahariya apart, says Lamanna, are its relatively complete* skeletons, likely the result of more languid water movement through the area.

Layers of rock at Bahariya preserve only a few million years of its story, from the middle of the Cretaceous. The oldest rock from Bahariya represents a more terrestrial landscape but, says Lamanna, the new layers deposited above it show increasing evidence of a marine environment, indicating the gradual encroachment of a body of water called the Tethys Sea. Later, as the Cretaceous Period wore on, ancient Africa moved closer to what’s now Eurasia, and parts of the Tethys Sea transformed into the modern-day Mediterranean.

While the fossil record of North African dinosaurs is skimpy for the period following Bahariya’s reign of the giants, there is some evidence, says Lamanna, that at least one group of larger animals, the abelisaurids, survived in the area until around the time an asteroid brought the age of dinosaurs to an end some 66 million years ago.

Today, the oasis is changing again, as agriculture and other human activity expands in the once-empty desert, threatening fossil dig sites that Salem says his team is working to protect. After all, it’s almost certain that, like the recently described abelisaurid, there are more monsters buried at Bahariya, waiting to be found.

*Correction: This article previously stated that fossil skeletons from Bahariya Oasis are nearly complete. The skeletons are more complete than fossils of similar species found at other sites, but, according to Lamanna, they are still “incomplete enough to render all of these animals mysterious to at least some degree.”

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In Egypt’s ‘Land of Death,’ Dinosaurs Were Supersized—and Hungry

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Fossils unearthed in the Bahariya Oasis tell a story of giant predators hunting on land and in the water.

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Founded by Siddharth Mehta and Puneet Saraogi, Bay Capital operates, both, a private equity, as well a long-only public markets investment practice.

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The Series-B round of equity financing is an internal round that was led by the company existing investor, mid-market private equity firm Bay Capital Investments, with the promoters of the Mumbai-headquartered company also participating. The brokerage, which competes with the likes of Bengaluru-based Zerodha, will use the proceeds towards building a mutual fund distribution platform, lending capabilities, as well as its research and advisory businesses. “Samco has had an impressive growth trajectory since its inception in 2015.

We are also very impressed with the Samco team and the innovation that they have brought to the plate in an otherwise cluttered market,” Siddharth Mehta, founder of Bay Capital, said. “They understand the complex requirements of the market and have been successful in delivering unique solutions.”

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ThinkStock Photos
The brokerage, which competes with the likes of Bengaluru-based Zerodha, will use the proceeds towards building a mutual fund distribution platform.

NEW DELHI: Samco Ventures, which owns and operates online discount broker Samco Securities and mobile trading platform StockNote, has raised $7.5 million (Rs 49 crore) in a fresh round of funding.

The Series-B round of equity financing is an internal round that was led by the company existing investor, mid-market private equity firm Bay Capital Investments, with the promoters of the Mumbai-headquartered company also participating. The brokerage, which competes with the likes of Bengaluru-based Zerodha, will use the proceeds towards building a mutual fund distribution platform, lending capabilities, as well as its research and advisory businesses.

"Samco has had an impressive growth trajectory since its inception in 2015. We are also very impressed with the Samco team and the innovation that they have brought to the plate in an otherwise cluttered market," Siddharth Mehta, founder of Bay Capital, said. "They understand the complex requirements of the market and have been successful in delivering unique solutions."

The latest round of funding, which also saw participation from company's other existing backers, including the Modi family and other high-net-worth individuals, including Indian cricketing legend Kapil Dev, comes about two years after it raised its previous round of $3 million in fiscal 2016.

"(We) look forward towards addressing the problems that the trading and investing industry is plagued with, and ensure low-cost access to capital markets is available for every Indian," Jimeet Modi, chief executive of SAMCO Securities and StockNote, said.

The company, which claims to service over 75,000 customers, also recently launched StockNote, a content streaming and trading platform that aggregates and delivers news and information about stocks and sectors across India.

Founded by Siddharth Mehta and Puneet Saraogi, Bay Capital operates, both, a private equity, as well a long-only public markets investment practice.

The investment firm's portfolio includes Sterling Holiday Resorts, Vini Cosmetics, IL&FS Energy, Intellivate Capital Ventures and the South and West India franchisee for McDonald's Westlife Leisure Resorts, according to VCCEdge.

More recently, the investment firm also reported to be picking up a controlling stake in the Malvinder and Shivinder Singh-promoted Religare Enterprises, in which it held a 10% stake. Post the ouster of the Singh brothers, in February earlier this year, Mehta was named as a non-executive, non-independent director of the beleaguered financial services company.

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Samco Ventures raises Rs 49 crore in Series-B

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NEW DELHI: Samco Ventures, which owns and operates online discount broker Samco Securities and mobile trading platform StockNote, has raised $7.5 million (Rs 49 crore) in a fresh round of funding. The Series-B round of equity financing is an internal round that was led by the company existing investor, mid-market private equity firm Bay Capital Investments, with the promoters of the Mumbai-headquartered company also participating.

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Some recently listed Gujarat-based companies' IPOs have delivered up to 280 per cent return  to the allottees post-listing

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These 5 recent IPOs of Gujarat-based companies outperform others

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These 5 recent IPOs of Gujarat-based companies outperform others

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As Indian stock market reels under sell-off pressure, some Gujarat-based companies IPOs (Initial Public Offer) have outperformed others, which includes one of the most sought LIC IPO. Some of the recently launched public issues like Tatva Chintan Pharma, Adani Wilmar, Ami Organics, Rolex Rings and Exxaro Tiles have given much better return than the most awaited IPOs that got listed recently at the Indian bourses.

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As Indian stock market reels under sell-off pressure, some Gujarat-based companies IPOs (Initial Public Offer) have outperformed others, which includes one of the most sought LIC IPO. Some of the recently launched public issues like Tatva Chintan Pharma, Adani Wilmar, Ami Organics, Rolex Rings and Exxaro Tiles have given much better return than the most awaited IPOs that got listed recently at the Indian bourses.

Here we list out 5 Gujarat-based company's whose IPOs have outperformed others:

1] Adani Wilmar IPO: The public issue was offered at a price band of ₹218 to ₹230 per equity share. Adani Wilmar shares had a par listing as the stock listed at ₹221 on BSE and ₹227 on NSE. However, Adani Wilmar share price had a dream run post-listing as it made a life-time high of ₹878 per share, around 280 per cent higher from the upper band of its issue price. Adani Wilmar share price today is around ₹645, which is near 180 per cent higher from its issue price. So, this Gujarat-based company's public issue has delivered up to 280 per cent return to its investors in near 4 months of share listing.

2] Ami Organics IPO: Shares of Ami Organics had a dream debut on Indian bourses as it opened at more than 50 per cent premium. Ami Organics shares listed at ₹902 on BSE and ₹910 on NSE against its issue price of ₹603 to ₹610 per equity share. Post-listing , Ami Organics shares have climbed up life-time high of ₹1434.45 on NSE, which is around 135 higher from its upper price band of ₹610. Ami Organics share price today is around ₹895 per share, around 46 per cent higher from its upper price band.

3] Rolex Rings IPO: Shares of Rolex Rings had a strong opening at ₹1249 on BSE and ₹1250 on NSE against its price band of ₹880 to ₹900 per shares. After listing , Rolex rings share price made its life-time high of ₹1624.60 levels on NSE, logging up to 80 per cent rise post-listing of Rolex Rings shares. Rolex Rings share price today is ₹1447, around 60 per cent higher from its issue price. So, this Gujarat-based company's IPO has given up to 80 per cent return to its allottees in near 10 months of its share listing.

4] Tatva Chintan IPO: Shares of Tatva Chintan had a dream debut at a premium of 95 per cent on India exchanges. Tatva Chintan shares opened at ₹2111.80 on BSE and at ₹2111.85 at NSE against the issue price of ₹1083 per equity share. Post-listing, Tatva Chintan share price made a life-time high of ₹2977.80 on NSE, logging around 175 per cent rise. Tatva Chintan share price today is ₹2215 per share, which is around 105 per cent higher from its issue price of ₹1083 per share. So, Tatva Chintan shares have delivered up to 175 per cent post-listing.

5] Exxaro Tiles IPO: Shares of Exxaro Tiles were offered at a price band of ₹118 to ₹120 per equity share. The issue had a positive listing at ₹126 on BSE and NSE on 16th August 2021. However, Exxaro Tiles share price ascended to its life-time high of ₹172.70, delivering up to 44 per cent to the allottees post-listing of shares. Exxaro Tiles share price today is ₹110 per share.

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These 5 recent IPOs of Gujarat-based companies outperform others

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Some recently listed Gujarat-based companies’ IPOs have delivered up to 280 per cent return to the allottees post-listing

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Back-to-back listings of DEWA and Tecom is pumping liquidity onto DFM

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Dubai's latest IPO - Tecom Group - hits DFM in full tilt on debut

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Dubai's latest IPO - Tecom Group - hits DFM in full tilt on debut

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Dubai: Tecom Group's share price gained 1 per cent in the first couple of minutes of making its debut on Dubai Financial Market. With this, another of Dubai’s high-visibility entities has made the transition from privately held to listing on the DFM. Ahead of the stock – the IPO for which drew record over-subscription from retail investors – going live, Tecom released its financials for the last three years.

The Tecom stock, which was sold at Dh2.67 a share had volumes of 28 million plus shares traded in the first 30 minutes. At 11.23, Tecom is down 6.36 per cent to Dh2.50, caught in the general dip that DFM has been experiencing. The stock had dropped by more than 14 per cent in afternoon trades, with volumes at nearly 155 million shares. By 2.46 pm, the decline was clipped to under 10 per cent.

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Back-to-back listings of DEWA and Tecom is pumping liquidity onto DFM

Gulf News Report

Dubai: Tecom Group's share price gained 1 per cent in the first couple of minutes of making its debut on Dubai Financial Market. With this, another of Dubai's high-visibility entities has made the transition from privately held to listing on the DFM. Ahead of the stock - the IPO for which drew record over-subscription from retail investors - going live, Tecom released its financials for the last three years.

The Tecom stock, which was sold at Dh2.67 a share had volumes of 28 million plus shares traded in the first 30 minutes. At 11.23, Tecom is down 6.36 per cent to Dh2.50, caught in the general dip that DFM has been experiencing. The stock had dropped by more than 14 per cent in afternoon trades, with volumes at nearly 155 million shares. By 2.46 pm, the decline was clipped to under 10 per cent.

Net profit for 2019-21 stayed were at Dh633.59 million, Dh579.08 million, and Dh568.83 million, respectively. Solid numbers given that for two of those years, there was the pandemic to deal with and what it meant for the way Tecom's tenants wanted to work. Tecom remains systemically one of the most important landlords in Dubai of commercial real estate, with 10 business hubs. These include the consistently in-demand Dubai Internet City and Media City, and the emerging Dubai Design District.

The improved numbers are starting to be sighted for this year, with Q1-2022 profit at Dh190.26 million against last year's Dh144.29 million. Tecom had earlier said it continues to do well on the leasing side, with solid retention rates on longer leases. This again is significant as businesses, especially tech and tech-focussed ones, are still flexible on hybrid working.

"We also own a land bank which can be leased out directly or developed for rent, providing greater opportunities to attract new tenants and customers or allow existing ones to expand operations," said Tecom in its listing prospectus.

For Tecom shareholders, the other big notable is the Dh800 million annual payout Tecom mentioned ahead of the IPO. The first tranche will be released in October. "For investors who bought both DEWA and Tecom, dividend payments in October will give them cheer," said an analyst.

Tecom had paid a pre-IPO dividend of Dh700 million to DHAM, its prime shareholder.

Business parks have the pull

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Dubai's latest IPO - Tecom Group - hits DFM in full tilt on debut

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Back-to-back listings of DEWA and Tecom is pumping liquidity onto DFM Gulf News Report Dubai: Tecom Group's share price gained 1 per cent in the first couple of minutes of making its debut on Dubai Financial Market. With this, another of Dubai's high-visibility entities has made the transition from privately held to listing on the DFM.

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IL&FS gets NCLAT approval for Rs16,000 crore interim payout to creditors 

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IL&FS gets NCLAT approval for Rs16,000 crore interim payout to creditors 

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The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has directed the new board of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) to make interim payout to creditors after prior approval of the new board, the tribunal said in an order.

Heartwarming gratitude for the NCLAT in regard to interim distribution, where the board approved the new law to comply to payout the creditors.

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IL&FS gets NCLAT approval for Rs16,000 crore interim payout to creditors

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The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has directed the new board of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) to make interim payout to creditors after prior approval of the new board, the tribunal said in an order.

The interim distribution shall be confined only to the entities as reflected in "Annexure-6" except those excluded and for the amount of Rs 16,361 crores -- Rs 11,296 crore of cash and Rs 5,065 crore of InvIT units, the order said.

"With regard to interim distribution, we further direct the new board in addition to compliance of the interim resolution process...only after approval by the new board," the NCLAT order read.

"While granting approval by the new board, the approval shall contain all details of interim distribution, including the name of the creditors and the amounts which shall be provided to the creditors under the interim distribution and only after comprehensive approval by the new board, interim distribution shall be implemented."

If it is found that creditors have by way of interim distribution received an amount more than what such creditor ought to have received, the excess amount shall be liable to be returned, failing which the same may be recovered from such creditor either by way of adjustment at the time of final distribution or otherwise, the order added.

With this order, major beneficiaries would be public funds such as provident funds, insurance funds, pension funds, and army welfare funds, the company said.

An application had been filed with the NCLAT for undertaking interim distribution of Rs 16,000 crore of cash and InvIT units available across the group.

"Over 75 per cent of this would be distributed to creditors of three large holding companies -- IL&FS, IFIN and ITNL -- which have a large base of public fund creditors. This has been made possible on account of IL&FS' resolution framework and the underlying distribution formula," the company said.

Disclaimer: Information, facts or opinions expressed in this news article are presented as sourced from IANS and do not reflect views of Moneylife and hence Moneylife is not responsible or liable for the same. As a source and news provider, IANS is responsible for accuracy, completeness, suitability and validity of any information in this article.

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IL&FS gets NCLAT approval for Rs16,000 crore interim payout to creditors

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The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) has directed the new board of Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) to make interim payout to creditors after prior approval of the new board, the tribunal said in an order.

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Smart Talk : Siddharth Mehta  interview with ETMarkets

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Smart Talk : Siddharth Mehta  interview with ETMarkets

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“It is now a given that rates in the US will rise another 150 to 200 bps between now and the end of the year,” says Siddharth Mehta, Founder & CIO at Bay Capital.

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ETMarkets.com

"It is now a given that rates in the US will rise another 150 to 200 bps between now and the end of the year," says Siddharth Mehta, Founder & CIO at Bay Capital.

In an interview with ETMarkets, Mehta said: "To reiterate, long-term investors should be using this weakness to buy into high-quality businesses and stay invested for the next 5 years," Edited excerpts:

What is your take on markets - time to be cautious or greedy?
Global financial markets have been volatile and have trended significantly lower since the start of the year primarily driven by the actions and comments from the Fed about the extraction of liquidity from the financial system and steeper hiking of interest rates than previously anticipated.

It is now a given that rates in the US will rise another 150 to 200 bps between now and the end of the year.

While we are not macro forecasters, our sense is that the US Fed is likely to alter its commentary sometime in the fourth quarter of this year and that is the cue that equity markets in India will take as well.

While the next 3 months may see some further downside, for long-term oriented investors the present downdraft presents a very good buying opportunity to buy into strong durable franchises which will come through this period and get bigger and more dominant.

We will be completing the 6-months of 2022 and it has been a volatile journey for investors. What is your outlook for markets for the rest of the year? Will the markets fall over the short term to rebound? What are your views?
The very near-term is likely to be volatile and markets will be guided by the bigger global macro events. While there may be some downside, we do think that the latter half of the year will be better for equity market returns.

That said, investors should be taking a 5-year view and in that context, the present scenario provides a very good buying opportunity, though investors need to be selective and thoughtful in what they are buying.

Sectorally, Realty and IT sectors fell by more than 20% so far in 2022 - what is weighing on these sectors, and will the weakness continue?
The IT names have been stellar out-performers since the outbreak of the pandemic, and we have seen the entire sector getting massively rerated.

As the probability of a recession in the US is starting to increase, concerns of a slowdown in certain discretionary IT spending coupled with very high valuations are reflected in the price action.

Rising interest rates in India and macro concerns are weighing on other sectors such as real estate.

Power sector outperforms so far in 2022 do you have a view on the sector and why is it doing well?
As investors, we typically choose to avoid infrastructure names. Utilities have indeed done well this year, and this is a reflection of a larger swing away from growth to cyclical /value-oriented investments.

War, inflations, Yields, rate hikes, and crude oil still remain relevant evil for equity markets for the rest of 2022 - how should one be looking at the markets?
In any given 5-year period, there have always been dislocations, uncertainties, and other factors that seem to take centre stage and drive investor focus.

In fact, if one looks at India, from 2016 onwards, every year has seen some dislocation or other - demonetization, GST implementation, the ILFS episode in 2018, the great Indian slowdown in 2019, and then the Covid pandemic between 2020 and 2021, with 2022 being dominated by the events highlighted.

Our view is that from a 5-7-year perspective, many of these variables will play out and get reflected appropriately in stock prices.

High-quality businesses with dominant competitive advantages have the appropriate levers to pull in difficult periods and we believe that they in fact will come through this period and go on to become larger and more dominant.

Do you feel that FIIs outflows could stabilize or reverse in H22022?
Foreign investor flows are driven by a range of factors including sentiment, global macro conditions, global asset allocation, and the like.

India has seen relentless selling but unlike past episodes, strong domestic investor flows have acted as insulators.

As global macro conditions normalise, global investors will recognize the long-term structural opportunity in India, and flows will reverse, although trying to predict the timing of this is futile.

To reiterate, long-term investors should be using this weakness to buy into high-quality businesses and stay invested for the next 5 years.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of Economic Times)

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ETMarkets Smart Talk: US Fed likely to raise rates by 150-200 bps in 2022; use dip to buy for 5 years: Siddharth Mehta

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"Our view is that from a 5-7-year perspective, many of these variables will play out and get reflected appropriately in stock prices. High-quality businesses with dominant competitive advantages have the appropriate levers to pull in difficult periods and we believe that they in fact will come through this period and go on to become larger and more dominant."

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World’s oldest trees reveal the largest solar storm in history

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World’s oldest trees reveal the largest solar storm in history

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1859's Carrington event gave us a preview of how catastrophic the Sun could be for humanity. But it could get even worse than we imagined.

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While humanity reckons with many problems here on Earth — war, political turmoil, an ongoing pandemic, all alongside the energy, climate, and water crises — it’s important to remember just how relentless the Universe can be. While earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanoes, hurricanes and other natural disasters haven’t exactly ceased in the meantime, there’s a looming threat for which we’re completely unprepared: a solar storm. Without any mitigations, widespread electrical fires and power station failures could come with damages costing trillions of dollars, impacting the lives of of billions.

Historically, the largest recorded solar event occurred back in 1859: the Carrington event. But more than a millennium prior to that, an even stronger cosmic event struck Earth. We know this because, back in the years spanning 774-775, there was a tremendous spike in the presence of carbon-14 in Earth’s atmosphere, and the evidence is found in tree rings all across the world. After a full decade investigating the possible causes of this spike, the scientific conclusion we’ve reached is that the Sun was to blame. A solar storm from more than 1200 years ago may have been the most powerful one recorded in natural history. The Earth, as a result, may be at an even greater risk from a worst-case solar storm than anyone thought possible.

A solar flare from our Sun, which ejects matter out away from our parent star and into the Solar System, can trigger events like coronal mass ejections. Although the particles typically take ~3 days to arrive, the most energetic events can reach Earth in under 24 hours, and can cause the most damage to our electronics and electrical infrastructure.

(Credit: NASA/Solar Dynamics Observatory/GSFC)

The science of solar astronomy — where we directly observe the Sun — is a relatively young one. Although sunspots had been referred to and recorded since the 4th century BC, they were only identified as being inherent to the Sun during the time of Galileo in the early 1600s. The observations that these spots not only appeared on the Sun, but migrated across its surface as it rotated, were the first to robustly challenge Aristotle’s notion that the Sun was perfect: without either flaw or motion.

The connection of sunspots to solar flares wouldn’t be made until 1859, when solar astronomer Richard Carrington, while tracking a large, irregular sunspot region, observed what he called a “white light flare” that lasted for approximately five minutes. 18 hours later, the largest geomagnetic storm in recent history occurred on Earth, resulting in:

worldwide auroral displays, including at the equator,

miners awakening in the middle of the night, thinking it was dawn,

reports of aurorae so bright that newspapers could be read by their light,

and electrical systems, such as telegraphs, began sparking and igniting fires, even when they were completely disconnected and unplugged from any power source.

Given the tremendous development, subsequently, of humanity’s electric and electronic infrastructure, it’s easy to see how a similar event, if it were to occur today, could lead to an unprecedented catastrophe.

A solar flare from our Sun, which ejects matter out away from our parent star and into the Solar System, is a relatively typical event. However, a large-magnitude, proton-rich flare could indeed cause the spikes we’ve seen in carbon-14 and other isotopes in the past, and do a whole lot of damage to our infrastructure in the process.

(Credit: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory/GSFC)

There have been smaller solar storms, subsequently, that have impacted humanity. A three-day geomagnetic storm in 1921 sparked a number of fires worldwide, including near New York City’s Grand Central Terminal. A 1960 solar event caused widespread radio disruption, and then 1972’s solar storms caused major electrical and communications grid disturbances, even causing the accidental detonation of numerous naval mines. Meanwhile 1989’s geomagnetic storm caused massive power outages and substantial damage to the electrical grid.

Travel the Universe with astrophysicist Ethan Siegel. Subscribers will get the newsletter every Saturday. All aboard!

In July of 2012, the largest solar eruption since 1859 occurred, with intrinsic properties comparable to the Carrington event. Fortunately, the ejecta missed Earth as the Sun was rotated out-of-position; if the outburst had occurred 9 days earlier, it would likely have caused the most expensive natural disaster in human history.

What’s less clear, however, is how it’s possible to reconstruct what occurred more than 1000 years ago, when solar storms had no negative consequences for humanity and solar astronomy was a practically non-existent science. What was once mere guesswork suddenly became a scientific detective story thanks to an unlikely witness: ancient cedar trees.

Many trees, found across the world, are thousands of years old. The carbon atoms found inside tree rings will come in three varieties: carbon-12, carbon-13, and carbon-14. By measuring the carbon-14 abundances across the various rings and accounting for the modest half-life of carbon-14, we can reconstruct what the atmospheric abundances of carbon-14 were at the time each tree ring finished forming.

(Credit: Joe Shlabotnik/flickr)

Trees, quite famously, grow from the inside-out, producing a new set of rings in their trunks with each passing year. The past 3000 years, in particular, have been particularly well-documented thanks to a landmark data set synthesized from tree-ring data that spans the globe. Carbon is one of the most important elements found in all organic matter, derived either from the air (for most plants) or from the carbon-based matter consumed (by most animals) for food. Carbon comes in three varieties:

carbon-12, with 6 protons and 6 neutrons in its nucleus, which accounts for most naturally occurring carbon,

carbon-13, with 6 protons and 7 neutrons in its nucleus, representing about 1.1% of naturally occurring carbon,

and carbon-14, with 6 protons and 8 neutrons in its nucleus, which is radioactive, possessing a half-life of about 5700 years.

If the only source of carbon were the material that Earth initially formed from some 4.5 billion years ago, there would be no carbon-14 at all, as it would have all decayed away. But there is carbon-14 on Earth, as approximately 1 out of every one trillion carbon atoms has eight neutrons inside its nucleus. We didn’t figure out why until the 20th century: because the Earth is constantly being bombarded by high-energy particles from space.

Cosmic rays, which are ultra-high energy particles originating from all over the Universe, including the Sun, strike atomic nuclei in the upper atmosphere and produce showers of new particles. The fast-moving charged particles also emit light due to Cherenkov radiation as they move faster than the speed of light in Earth’s atmosphere, and produce secondary particles, including neutrons, that will continue to interact with other particles in the atmosphere.

(Credit: Asimmetrie/INFN)

From all sorts of cosmic sources — stars (including the Sun), white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes, and even galaxies beyond the Milky Way — high-energy particles are emitted, and some of them collide with Earth’s atmosphere. When they do, they strike the atoms that are present there: mostly nitrogen and oxygen. Those collisions often wind up producing a cascade of particles, including photons, electrons, positrons (the antimatter counterparts of electrons), unstable particles like mesons and muons, along with the common and familiar protons and neutrons.

The neutron, when it comes to carbon-14, is all-important. Most of Earth’s atmosphere (78%) is made of nitrogen gas: a diatomic molecule containing two nitrogen atoms apiece. Nitrogen typically possesses 7 protons and 7 neutrons in its nucleus, but when a neutron strikes it, there’s a finite probability of a replacement reaction occurring, with that neutron replacing one of the protons. Whenever this occurs, the nucleus transmutes from a nitrogen atom (with 7 protons and 7 neutrons) into a carbon atom (with 6 protons and 8 neutrons): specifically, a carbon-14 atom.

All carbon atoms consist of 6 protons in their atomic nucleus, but there are three main varieties that exist in nature. Carbon-12, with 6 neutrons, makes up the most common form of stable carbon; carbon-13 has 7 neutrons and makes up the remaining 1.1% of stable carbon; carbon-14 is unstable, with a half-life of a little more than 5,700 years, but is constantly being formed in Earth’s atmosphere due to incident cosmic rays.

(Credit: Coastal Systems Group/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute)

From the time it’s produced all the way up until it decays, each carbon-14 atom will behave just like its stable cousins carbon-12 and carbon-13. It readily forms carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, and gets mixed throughout the atmosphere and the oceans. It gets incorporated into all living organisms exactly as any other form of carbon would, until it reaches equilibrium concentrations with the surrounding environment.

It’s only when an organism dies — or, in the case of organisms like trees, its annual/seasonal ring is fully formed — that no new carbon-14 can enter it. At that point, the amount of carbon-14 inside of it is at a maximum, and from hereon out, it decays just as you’d expect: exponentially and probabilistically, with an overall half-life of ~5700 years.

The way we carbon-date organisms is by measuring the current carbon-14 to carbon-12 ratio. Since the ratio of those two species to one another, at any given time, is extremely stable (it stays at about 1-part-in-a-trillion over time, with variations at only the 0.6% level from year-to-year), measuring the carbon-14/carbon-12 ratio at any time allows us to determine how much time has passed since that organism stopped uptaking new carbon-14.

If one knows how carbon-14 decays and can measure how much carbon-14 (relative to carbon-12) is present today, it’s straightforward to learn how much carbon-14 was present when a specific event occurred in a ‘fossilized’ relic from the past. The process of carbon-dating uses precisely this method, where the atoms remaining allow us to infer what the conditions were at the moment the carbon-containing organism stopped uptaking new carbon.

(Credit: ExeterPaul/Wikimedia Commons)

That’s why measuring tree-rings — and, in particular, the measurement of tree-rings in Japanese cedar trees that were alive in the years 774-775 — gave us such a scientific shock when we analyzed them. Over the past 3,000 years, there were only four brief periods where the carbon-14 content of trees increased by more than 3% over the timespan of a decade.

One of them was recent: in the 20th century, which was caused by the open-air detonation of the world’s first nuclear weapons.

Two of them were relatively low in magnitude, and so aren’t the best to analyze.

But one such transition occurred abruptly and with an incredibly large magnitude. From 774 to 775, the carbon-14 content increased a staggering 12%, and did so all at once. This “spike” is about 20 times as large as any other natural variations that were seen to occur on year-to-year timescales, and was quickly confirmed to exist in other places around the world. Other trees from around the world, including in Germany, Russia, New Zealand and even North America also showed this same spike, indicating that the carbon-14 spike was a worldwide phenomenon.

The colored dots with error bars show the C-14 data measured in Japanese (M12) and German (Oak) trees along with the typical profile for the instant production of C-14 (black curve). Note how large the ‘spike’ is in 774/5 compared to the previous years and the uncertainties.

(Credit: Isosik/Wikimedia Commons)

The fact that carbon-14 levels rose is interesting, but isn’t compelling enough, on its own, to reveal a solar storm as the underlying cause. Sure, solar activity is one possibility, but cosmic flares, gamma-ray bursts, or even receiving a direct hit from a black hole jet or collimated supernova event could also cause a spike in carbon-14. However, we have other historical and scientific evidence, and when you add them all together, a solar event is the only reasonable conclusion.

Historically, a “red crucifix in the heavens” was recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of 774, which could refer to either a supernova (although no remnant has ever been found) or an auroral event. At almost the exact same time, in 775, Chinese observers reported seeing an anomalous “thunderstorm,” widely suspected to refer to an equatorial auroral event, as no other such “thunderstorm” was ever reported as such.

Meanwhile, the scientific tree-ring data can be combined with ice-core data recovered from Antarctica. While the tree-rings show a spike in carbon-14 from 774 to 775, the ice core data shows a corresponding spike in radioactive beryllium-10 and chlorine-36, which suggest an association with a strong, energetic event of solar particles.

The carbon-14 data (center) along with the associated spikes in the ice core data of beryllium-10 (top) and chlorine-36 (bottom) are all consistent with a proton-rich solar flare event for the origin of the excess signal seen from 774 to 775.

(Credit: F. Mekhaldi et al., Nature Communications (2015))

The other two spikes recorded over the past 3000 years correspond to potential solar activity events as well: one from 993 to 994, and one from as far ago as about 660 BC. All three of these events can be unified by a common cause: a rapid ejection of protons from the Sun. Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae don’t produce enough protons, so those explanations are disfavored. Optically invisible events, like extragalactic cosmic flares or a black hole’s jet, wouldn’t have produced coincident historical observations, and so those are disfavored as well. The only option that explains all of the observations, together, is a solar storm.

The spike from 774 to 775 is by far the largest one observed. From the properties of the tree-ring and the ice-core data that we’ve taken, we can even compare the flare that caused it to 1859’s Carrington event, and the results are truly incredible. While the Carrington event is the most powerful solar flare ever recorded in modern times, a full analysis of the data suggests that this 774-775 event, from more than 1200 years ago, may have been up to or even more than ten times as powerful. Although the data is much worse, there’s new evidence just published this year that suggest a solar storm from ~9200 years ago may have even been more powerful than the 774-775 event.

In February of 2021, an estimated 4.4 million Texans lost power due to a winter storm. In the event of a grid-overloading space weather event, there could be over a billion people across the world left without power, a global series of fires, and a chain reaction of uncontrolled satellite collisions. All of that adds up to a natural disaster without precedent in the history of the world.

(Credit: NOAA)

It’s vitally important, when we consider the dangers we face from a potentially devastating solar storm, that we neither exaggerate nor downplay the threats that our own Sun poses. Under normal circumstances, the Sun emits charged particles, with magnetic events driving the release of an occasional flare or an even less common coronal mass ejection. On rare occasion, these emitted particle streams are high-energy and move rapidly, traversing the Sun-Earth distance in under a day. And if the alignment is just perfectly wrong with the flare’s particles striking the Earth directly and the surface solar magnetic field perfectly anti-aligned with Earth’s self-generated magnetic field a terrestrial disaster will ensue.

Until recently, we thought that a Carrington-like event would be a worst-case scenario. But more recent evidence now indicates that solar storms come in varieties that can be ten times as strong as 1859’s Carrington event, with correspondingly more dire consequences for our infrastructure, both on the ground and in orbit around our planet. From a catastrophic cascade of satellites in low-Earth orbit to widespread electrical fires to weeks-long durations without power, the impact on humanity will be felt for decades or even longer.

Unless we prepare our power grid, our energy distribution systems, our space infrastructure, and the citizens of Earth to be ready for the inevitable day where such a flare strikes us, we’ll pay the catastrophic costs all at once. It’s up to us, collectively, to take the necessary preparatory actions to be ready. Otherwise, when it happens, our only avenue will be to pick up the pieces of our civilization and, if we can, attempt to rebuild.

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World's oldest trees reveal the largest solar storm in history

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While humanity reckons with many problems here on Earth - war, political turmoil, an ongoing pandemic, all alongside the energy, climate, and water crises - it's important to remember just how relentless the Universe can be. While earthquakes, tornadoes, volcanoes, hurricanes and other natural disasters haven't exactly ceased in the meantime, there's a looming threat for which we're completely unprepared: a solar storm.

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We’re in the midst of a fundamental shift in leadership

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We’re in the midst of a fundamental shift in leadership

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Influence is the new power, and managers have a lot to learn from activists and thought leaders.

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I did not have leadership potential. So I decided to become a thought leader.

OK, kidding. Some people have told me I don’t have a leadership potential, but that simply meant I did not fit their idea of leadership. However, leadership comes in many forms, and right now, we are in the midst of a major change. Old models are no longer working, employees are revolting against surveillance and presenteeism, and managers who can’t adapt are resigning or retiring. Many examples of new leadership don’t fit the stereotypical image of positional power.

Let me give you an example: For several years, I was responsible for ensuring that university professors —none of whom reported to me—did the data and reporting work none of them signed up for when they took the job. I did not just survive; I enjoyed the work and the collectively produced results. How? The same way as many years earlier, as a teenage activist, I organized our neighborhood to protect the local lake. The only way to lead effectively when you can’t force people to do something is to be an example, share information, and lead from a place of caring.

If the true goal of leadership is motivating people to achieve goals and effect change, the old model of using positional authority may never have been the most effective. A different approach is seen in many examples. With no positional authority, young environmental activists change legislation and promote environmentally friendly products. Thought leaders like Brené Brown  and Amy Edmondson created vulnerability and psychological safety revolutions in the workplace. And informal leaders within organizations have always accomplished much work without strong-arming people into compliance.

Effective leadership is not the same as formal authority. Here’s why:

The bases of power

Social psychologists John French and Bertram Raven‘s time-tested framework described five bases of interpersonal power, or the ability to effect change. They disagreed on the sixth—informational power. French believed that information produced influence, but not power. Raven felt that informational influence, in its potential, is power, and included informational power in his solo work.

It appears that Raven was right. And now, with remote and knowledge work limiting the usefulness of other sources of power, informational influence is becoming an increasingly important power.

Here is the six-element version of the framework:

1. Legitimate power is inherent in a position, such as a supervisor’s job title. The title signals that the individual has the legitimate authority to be in charge. This “because I said so” power is often supported by the next two power sources: “because I can reward you” and “because I can punish you.”

2. Reward Power stems from the ability to grant bonuses, raises, promotions, and privileges.

3. Coercive power relies on the ability to punish via termination, demotion, undesirable scheduling, or unpleasant assignments. The effectiveness of coercive power may be limited by resistance to it. Reward and coercive power require surveillance and the continued use of the positional authority, rewards, and punishments to be effective. However, the other types of power are not constrained by surveillance or the need to exert power nonstop.

4. Referent power is based on our identification with leaders and the intrinsic desire to follow their example.

5. Expert Power stems from our belief that the leader has a deeper understanding of relevant topics and “knows best.”

6. Informational Influence/power goes beyond the expert power by adding an element of learning. Not only does the leader know best, but the follower is developing an advanced understanding of why something is “best.” As a result, followers experience a change of mind and know the reason for action. Raven called this a “socially independent change” which might have been initiated by the leader but continues without the further leadership effort. People may not even remember who was the source of change.

Leadership without surveillance

Remote and flexible work challenges the traditional workplace authority model. Taking away opportunities for surveillance reduces the ability of formal authorities to dominate using rewards and punishments. Now, positional leaders who used to rely on rewards and punishments have limited options:

They can attempt to use surveillance where it is likely to harm productivity, such as the remote knowledge and creativity work

They can force people into the office, double-down on using reward (perks, bonuses) and punishment (paycuts, firings) power. But this risks losing employees and having to deal with a reduced replacement talent pool.

They can lead through referent, expert, and informational power, using purpose-centered inspiration while changing work organization to replace domination with the focus on wellbeing, outcomes, flexibility, and participation.

Yes, positional leaders still can and need to use the legitimate, reward, and even coercive power when appropriate. However, as work becomes increasingly cognitive or even emotional, the relative importance of the referent, expert, and informational leadership will continue to grow. The experience of those who had to lead in the workplace with little-to-no positional power, activists, and thought leaders offers valuable lessons for developing influence without using coercion or rewards.

Developing referent, expert, and informational influence

Remember my example of leading the university faculty? There is an old complaint that managing university professors is like herding cats. Of course, the same is said about engineers, creatives, and other professionals whose very jobs require critical and independent thinking. The skillset needed to support a willing collaboration of “knowledge cats” is essentially the same across industries. It is also similar to the skillset required for leading the younger employees who seek purpose and meaning in their work but are unimpressed by positional authority. Combining the data-informed logic of informational and expert power with the authenticity and empathy of the referent power supports effective leadership without surveillance or domination.

Referent power is about leading by example. Aspiring leaders and those retooling to lead in the post-pandemic world can develop their referent power through modeling transparency and authenticity, as well as listening and compassion.

Activist leaders must practice what they preach. As a teenage environmental activist, I learned that inspiring others to care for the planet requires walking the walk. An effective environmental activist can’t be irresponsibly consuming resources. Similarly, if one expects colleagues to contribute high-quality work, setting an example of competence and commitment is non-negotiable.

In addition to authenticity, listening to and understanding others underpins human connections. Relationships are much more intrinsically motivating than transactional rewards and punishments. Even before the pandemic, 78% of employees were willing to switch jobs to get more empathy. And 77% were willing to give more hours of work to an empathetic employer. Now, as the stress and burnout are taking a toll on employees, managers face an even taller order to exhibit compassion.

Once upon a time, expert power was achieved by hanging one’s college diploma on the office wall. The credential inflation and the emphasis on staying current require that many demonstrate expertise in additional ways. Credentials from independent organizations reflecting performance on objective tests, high-quality writing and speaking, and other indicators of expertise are increasingly important in addition to traditional diplomas.

Writing, speaking, and otherwise contributing to developing knowledge and thinking blurs the line between expert and informational power. If done well, this effort both establishes expertise and supports informational influence. Distributed workforce focused on learning and creativity increasingly requires that those in organizational leadership roles display characteristics of thought leadership —changing people’s minds and inspiring at a distance.

To build on the referent, expert, and informational power, leadership must center on shared purpose. Both activism leadership and thought leadership unite diverse people from around the world because the cause or the idea intrinsically inspires them. Authentically uniting talent around a sense of purpose is increasingly the task of all leaders. Earning the respect of people and supporting them with care and dignity provide the relational foundation for the intrinsically inspired work.

A fancy desk and a business suit are optional.

Ludmila N. Praslova, PhD, SHRM-SCP, uses her extensive experience with global, cultural, ability, and neurodiversity to help create inclusive and equitable workplaces. She is a professor and director of Graduate Programs in Industrial-Organizational Psychology at Vanguard University of Southern California.

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We're in the midst of a fundamental shift in leadership

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Influence is the new power, and managers have a lot to learn from activists and thought leaders.

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In every sector and in every business aspect, digital activity has become extremely important 

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In every sector and in every business aspect, digital activity has become extremely important 

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StockInforce :  IL&FS Former Director, Siddharth Mehta is confident about putting investing into the Indian market instead of some other arising and created one. Since India has seen an enormous expansion in the general entrance of the internet owing to strong growth in low-cost smartphones, a significant reduction in data prices, the creation of an ecosystem of products and services driven by the government’s digital initiatives, and the development of low cost, robust payment systems.

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How psychology can help you change someone’s mind

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How psychology can help you change someone’s mind

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Changing your mind (or someone else’s) is a complex process. But understanding how your brain works can help.

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If you’ve ever tried to change someone’s mind but found they were completely unwilling to budge in their thinking, it can help to understand how the brain works. Changing your mind—or someone else’s—is a complex process done through assimilation or accommodation, says David McRaney, author of How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion and host of the science podcast You Are Not So Smart.

“When the brain is confronted with novel information that generates cognitive dissonance, we tend to assuage that conflict by either updating our interpretations information or updating the models of reality that we generated to make sense of it,” he says.

Assimilation is when the brain takes the new information and fits it into an existing model in the brain. Accommodation is when we acknowledge that our existing model is incomplete or incorrect. The brain updates the model so that the novel information is no longer an anomaly but a new layer of understanding.

The easiest way to understand how it happens is to think of a child who is learning how the world works and building complex neural structures. For example, if they see a dog for the first time and are told the word for it, the brain creates a category that defines “nonhumans walking on four legs” as dogs. If later they see a horse, they may say, “dog.” Their brain is going through assimilation. Once corrected, the brain shifts into accommodation.

“To expand your mind, you literally have to create a new category in which horse and dog exists,” says McRaney. “You have to change your mind, keeping what you already know but updating your interpretations.”

Why You Think What You Think

Everyone’s mind is filled with beliefs, attitudes, and values, says McRaney. He defines beliefs as an estimation of your confidence in the truth or falsity of a piece of information. Attitudes are positive or negatives evaluations of something. And values are an estimation of what is most important and most worth our time. All these things combined impact how someone thinks.

To better understand how someone can have beliefs and attitudes that are opposite of yours, McRaney likes to give the example of “the dress” debate of 2015. Some people saw the dress as being black and blue and others saw it as white and gold. If you saw the dress one way, you couldn’t see it the other.

“People were getting into arguments,” says McRaney. “They were saying, ‘There must be something wrong with you if you don’t see it how I do.'”

Turns out, the photo was overexposed, and how you saw the dress was related to the amount of time you’ve spent in sunlight versus artificial light. After two years of research with more than 10,000 participants, Pascal Wallisch, a neuroscientist who studies perception, discovered that the more time a person had spent exposed to artificial light, which is predominantly yellow, the more likely they saw the dress as being black and blue. Their brains were unconsciously processing the overexposure as being artificially lit, removing the yellow light, and leaving the bluer shades. For a person who had spent more time exposed to natural light, the opposite was true, and their brains subtracted the blue light and saw the dress as white and gold.

“We are not aware that our brains do this; we are just on the receiving end of the process,” says McRaney. “What is amazing is that your life choices lead to what sort of assumptions you see.”

Changing Someone Else’s Mind

When you meet people who disagree with you on certain topics, it’s important to realize that you’re unaware of all the forces that took place to create their conclusions. Someone else’s beliefs, attitudes, and values are made up of a culmination of years of experiences and behaviors. People can and do change their minds for a variety of reasons, and one of those is due to persuasion, such as a one-on-one conversation, a learning experience, or media messaging.

McRaney says successful persuasion involves leading a person along in stages, helping them to better understand their own thinking. “You can’t persuade another person to change their mind if that person doesn’t want to do so,” he says. “Persuasion is mostly encouraging people to realize change is possible. All persuasion is self-persuasion. People change or refuse based on their own desires, motivations, and internal counterarguing; and by focusing on these factors, an argument becomes more likely to change minds.”

If you get into an argument with someone and your only goal is to prove that you are right and they are wrong, you guarantee that neither side of that argument would understand the higher truth, which is why you see it differently. Instead, McRaney says it’s important to share your intentions up front. For example, you may be worried that someone is being misled or you believe there are other choices that could produce better results.

“Not only does that keep you on solid ethical ground, but it also increases your chances of success,” he says. “If you don’t, people will assume your intentions. If they believe that your position is that they are gullible or stupid or deluded or in the wrong group or a bad person, then of course they will resist, and the facts will now be irrelevant.”

Letting Someone Else Change Your Mind

When you try to change someone else’s mind, you should be open to having your own mind changed, as well. McRaney suggests asking yourself, “Am I right about everything?”

“Most people would say, No,” he says. “But then ask yourself, ‘What am I wrong about?’ Suddenly that becomes a very difficult question to answer. If you know that you must be wrong about something, and you’re not aware what those things are, the next question is, ‘How can I go about discovering?’ If you don’t have a clear answer for that, that means that maybe you are operating in a way that doesn’t allow you to discover your areas of ignorance or conflict.”

Some people are very eager to discover what they’re wrong about, and they seek it out. It feels good to update and accommodate. Some people are very resistant to it.

“It can be hard to change your mind because it’s much more difficult and cognitively more expensive and dangerous to accommodate,” says McRaney. “If you were to say to yourself that maybe I’m on the wrong side of this issue, completely factually incorrect, that requires a lot of updating all throughout the neural systems. So, we tend to resist and avoid that, especially when it’s connected to your identity.”

But being willing to change your mind can lead greater changes in culture and epiphanies that create a paradigm shift. “When creatures have the capacity to change but there’s little encouragement to do so, they remain mostly the same from one generation to the next,” he says. “But when the pressure to adapt increases, the pace of evolution increases in response.”

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How psychology can help you change someone's mind

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Changing your mind (or someone else's) is a complex process. But understanding how your brain works can help.

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 21 Minute Habits That Can Boost Your Productivity by 100% 

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 21 Minute Habits That Can Boost Your Productivity by 100% 

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As the name suggests, micro habits require minimal motivation and effort to accomplish. Eventually, this little habit will build on top of itself into something bigger and better for you and your goals. It's like when you start running. You may only be able to make it half a mile. But, eventually, you'll be cruising through marathons.

Calendar - Calendar

Overall, micro habits have the ability to transform every aspect of your life. And that certainly applies to your productivity. Here are 21 mico habits that can be done in about a minute but will boost your productivity by 100% over time.

1. Read 3-pages of a book before bed.

You don't want to hit the hay when you're in a bad mood. Or, even worse, after you've filled your brain with garbage like reality TV. Yes, it's understandable that you'd like to decompress before going to bed. However, what you do before bed can affect how well you wake up and how you feel throughout the day.

The answer? Read something uplifting and inspiring. Ideally, a biography from someone you would consider a hero or mentor. Or, if you prefer a self-help book.

Since it takes on average 1.7 minutes to read one page, there's really no excuse not to make this nightly ritual.

2. Start each day with power and intention.

When you want to start a new healthy habit or break out of your comfort zone, you first need a strong intention to accomplish that. As Wayne Dyer, author of "The Power of Intention," wrote, "The power of intention is the power to manifest, to create, to live a life of unlimited abundance, and to attract into your life the right people at the right moments."

In fact, every action you take in life can be guided by an intention. For example, whenever you eat, set the intention of eating mindfully. Or, instead of fixating on the desired outcome at work, feel focused on feeling fully expressed in what you do.

To get started, simply ask yourself, "What am I aiming to achieve?"

3. Wake and meditate.

Can you really meditate in 60-seconds? Absolutely.

According to research from 2019, regular short-duration meditation can have similar health benefits to longer meditations. In short, the frequency of your daily practices appears to matter more than the length.

Starting with a minute each day, you may soon find yourself stopping several times, or even five or six times, throughout the day. Over time, mindfulness becomes a habit.

A good way to begin the day with mindfulness and live in the now is in the first moments of waking up by;

Make sure your body is in a comfortable position.

Take a moment to scan your body quickly as you stretch.

Take note of how your body feels in each part.

Inhale and exhale several times for one minute.

4. Whittle down your responsibilities.

After meditating, you helpfully feel calm enough to review your to-do list or calendar. But, to make sure that you don't overextend yourself, prioritize your tasks and schedule them accordingly.

Now, some prioritization strategies will take much longer than a minute. But, each morning, you should make sure that you're going to spend your day on your most important tasks. These are only 1-3 essential tasks. That's it.

But, which tasks should you consider the most important?

In his book "The Personal MBA," Josh Kauffman, a productivity expert, explains that a critical task is one that will lead to the results you are aiming for. In other words, a critical task(s) that will have the biggest impact. Of course, not every task has equal importance. To keep track of his tasks, Kauffman typically uses a 3×5 index card. But, you can use a post-it note, whiteboard, or to-do list app.

Additionally, Kauffman recommends making an artificial deadline to take advantage of "Parkinson's Law.". For example, "I'll have finished all of my MITs by 11 a.m." Just make sure you are realistic about the deadline. After all, you don't want to set yourself up for failure.

I would then take another minute and add this task and deadline to your calendar. This way, you won't schedule anything else until you've completed your MITs.

5, Don't make your morning workout a chore.

You might squabble at this. But, you don't always have to spend 30-minutes or an hour exercising. In fact, there's a one-minute workout that you should implement into your morning routine.

"Our One-Minute Morning Energizer routine is based on high-intensity interval training (HIIT) research done recently by exercise physiologists at McMaster University in Canada," writes the folks over at Eat This, Not That.

"Dozens of studies have shown that HIIT, or short bursts of fast, rigorous exercise sandwiched in between slow recovery periods, burns more calories and improves fitness better than long, moderate-intensity exercise, like jogging," they add. In this study, 14 sedentary and obese men and women on exercise bicycles were put through a HIIT workout which typically takes about 25 minutes. However, the McMaster researchers wanted to see if HIIT workouts can provide health and fitness benefits in a very short amount of time.

Participants who did these super-short workouts three times a week improved their blood pressure, blood sugar levels, and other indicators of health and fitness after six weeks.

One minute of vigorous aerobic activity is broken up into three 20-second bursts followed by a 60-second "active rest". In total, the fitness routine takes just 6 minutes, including warm-up and cool-down. This is a great way to kick off your day.

Instead of using a stationary bicycle, use bodyweight exercises;

Warm-up (2 minutes) - 60 seconds of slow, marching in place while circling your arms followed by 60 seconds of easy jumping jacks.

High-intensity exercise (20 seconds) - choose from one of these bodyweight exercises: arms-up squats, mountain climbers, or burpees.

Recovery (60 seconds) - slow, steady march in place.

Arms-up squats/ mountain climbers / or burpees (20 seconds).

Recovery march in place (60 seconds).

Arms-up squats/ mountain climbers / or burpees (20 seconds)

Recovery/ cool-down march in place (60 seconds)

6. Adhere to the one-minute rule.

In general, if you can accomplish a task in under a minute, do it right away. For example, you can respond to a quick email, schedule a task, or tweet.

Gretchen Rubin, author of "The Happiness Project" says it's a good way to keep small, nagging tasks under control. If you have a lot of little tasks or struggle with anxiety, this could be a helpful daily habit.

7. Disable all notifications for at least one long stretch of work every day.

Switching from one task to another is not easy for our brains. Whether it's an email or a text, even a single notification can take you away from your work for up to 40% of the day.

Do you think checking that notification is really worth it?

Maybe if you had an unlimited supply of time. Unfortunately, that's not realistic. So, if you want to help yourself and your career, spend a second silencing all notifications for at least one long time block, usually 2 to 4 hours.

8. Exchange self-pity for gratitude.

Studies show practicing gratitude before bed can lead to better sleep and a more productive tomorrow. Reinforcing what you're grateful for each day is an effective way to kill negativity and be a more positive thinker. You can do this internally or even better, journal a list of what you're grateful for. Journaling has many benefits, from relieving anxiety and tension to inspiring creativity and new ways of thinking.

9. Give your eyes a break.

Students and workers alike spend many hours a day staring at computer screens, where poor lighting, glare, and slumped posture can result in headaches and eye strain. These symptoms commonly occur after you log out of your computer and are known as "computer vision syndrome.".

Keep your eyes safe by scheduling frequent breaks from screen time. It is recommended that you look away from the screen for at least 20 seconds every 20 minutes when working on the computer.

When your eyes get a break, they are able to focus on something else and become less fatigued. Taking a nice, long stretch at this time is also a good idea - especially if you sit a lot. It's a simple and effective way to get the blood flowing.

10. Before you say yes, pause.

A brief pause not only buys you some time but also enables you to assess what is really going on by asking questions like;

Was this a request? Or was it merely a suggestion?

What's the cost of saying "yes."

Will this serve my mission or bring me closer to my goals?

Is this worth putting on my to-do list?

Are there alternatives? For example, instead of meeting, a quick Slack chat.

Usually, this calms your anxious thoughts and prevents you from being a people pleaser. And, most importantly, from overcommitting yourself.

11. Create accountability by telling others.

"If your tasks don't have accountability built into them (like a client deadline), creating accountability by letting others know your intentions is a great way to discipline yourself into staying on task," writes S. J. Scott "Habit Stacking: 97 Small Life Changes That Take Five Minutes or Less."

"You won't want to embarrass yourself by admitting you didn't get any work done, so you're much more likely to achieve your goals if you make them public."

12. Keep inspiring quotes near you.

The power of quotes is undeniable. But, why? Well, science says that inspirational quotes motivate us because there's implicit coaching involved, metaphors make ideas compelling, and we want to look up to others.

As such, it's important to read at least one good quote a day in order to be in the right frame of mind. For example, post it at your desk or on your fridge. When you do, you can refer to it when you need a little jolt.

13. Be less reactive

If something enrages you or upsets you instantly (even if it's just a negative thought) before reacting to it and pouring your energy into it, you should ask yourself why. By taking that micro-pause, you will see everything in a new light.

Or, you can simply count backward from 10 before letting these feelings occupy your mind and deplete your energy.

14. Limit the number of decisions you make.

Making too many decisions exhausts the brain and causes fatigue. You can manage your energy by doing your most important work first thing in the morning.

Another suggestion? Make fewer decisions.

Throughout the day, use lists to avoid random decisions. After all, checklists keep us organized and focused.

More specifically, plan your meals or clothes the night before. And, find ways to automate certain decisions, such as signing up for automatic bill payment for regular expenses.

Writing down or saying out loud a goal ten times will help you to focus your mind on how to achieve it. You can help your brain with these processes of external encoding and storage by connecting a physical action, such as writing or speaking.

With external storage, you're reminded of what you're aiming for. Your brain encodes information to determine what to retain and what to discard from memory.

By regularly focusing on a goal, you literally train your brain to filter the external environment for relevant information, enabling it to maintain the goal in conscious awareness.

But, don't just take my word for this, This is supported by the research. The chances of achieving goals are up to 1.2 to 1.4 times higher for people who write, say or describe them vividly.

16. Make a clear list.

If you're like most entrepreneurs, you're probably working on multiple projects simultaneously. Is this counterproductive? No doubt. But, sometimes, that's just how the cookie crumbles.

The downside, of course, is that having too much on your plate leads to being disorganized and strapped for time. And, it also makes tracking your progress difficult.

So, take a minute and find an item to clear from your list. If it's still important, identify to whom you can delegate this responsibility. Or, even better, completely remove it from your to-do list.

17. Get rejected.

Contact one or two people each day you'd like to work with, even if you're sure they won't be interested. Examples could be a prospective client, investor, or an organization to which you'd like to speak. It could even be a booking agent or industry leader who accepts guest blog posts.

You may not hear back right away. But someone will reply eventually. The risks are minor, and the gains could be considerable. And, it's a simple way to help you deal with setbacks and improve your communication skills.

18. Put everything away.

"At the end of my workday, I take 10 minutes and kind of put everything away that I can," Gretchen Rubin tells CNBC Make It. "I don't do deep cleaning or deep clutter cleaning, but I will put things in their places."

Not only can this help with the transition from home to work, but addressing these tiny tasks prevents them from building up and becoming overwhelming. "Also, it's much easier to feel focused," she says, "because it's easy to concentrate on whatever matters the most when we're not distracted by a bunch of little tasks or unfulfilled projects."

19. Write a done list.

"Most people are familiar with to-do lists, but these lists can easily make you feel overwhelmed and demotivated if you try to plan too much," writes Scott. "A done list has the opposite effect. By writing down everything you achieve each day, you'll feel motivated to continue."

20. Set your alarm 60 seconds earlier.

Have you ever felt like you were in a race against the clock rather than having an enjoyable start to your day? Getting up earlier can help.

At the same time, if you bump your alarm up by 30 minutes, you could feel like you're not getting enough sleep. You may even be interfering with your circadian rhythm. Rather than changing your wake-up time, just set it one minute earlier each morning.

Even if you don't notice it now, after 10 days, you could have 10 extra minutes in your morning. And, you can use that time to meditate, exercise, journal, or send out that email that might get rejected.

21. Exchange self-pity for gratitude.

Researchers have found that practicing gratitude before bed can improve sleep and productivity the next day. Being grateful for what you have each day can help you beat negativity and be a more positive person.

Make a list of things you're thankful for inside your head or, even better, create a gratitude journal. It relieves anxiety and tension, inspires creativity, and opens up new perspectives.

The key to success? Habit stacking.

If you want these habits to stick, you need these new behaviors to follow something that you already do. For example, after brushing your teeth you could meditate or journal.

"Every behavior needs a prompt to occur. Your existing routine can serve a prompt in a powerful and elegant way," explains BJ Fogg, Ph.D., who founded Stanford University's Behavior Design Labs.

Fogg recommends that you put your phone on do not disturb mode as soon as you sit at your desk to increase productivity. Eventually, it will boost your productivity when the habit takes hold, he says. Having small habits will allow you to "be less fearful to try to attempt other changes."
Image Credit: JESHOOTS.com; Pexels; Thank you!
The post 21 Minute Habits That Can Boost Your Productivity by 100% appeared first on Calendar.

Entrepreneur Editors' Picks

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21 Minute Habits That Can Boost Your Productivity by 100%

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As the name suggests, micro habits require minimal motivation and effort to accomplish. Eventually, this little habit will build on top of itself into something bigger and better for you and your goals. It's like when you start running. You may only be able to make it half a mile.

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Where to find, edit, and remove everything your browser knows about you

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Where to find, edit, and remove everything your browser knows about you

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Navigating the web can require typing the same details again and again: Passwords, addresses, and credit card details, for example. To give some respite to your fingers and thumbs, most browsers now offer autocomplete features that save this information and retrieve it automatically when you need it.

This can be hugely convenient, but you may be concerned about your privacy and security online. And even if you are not, it’s important to be aware of what your browser is saving and where you can access it.

Remember that anyone who sits in front of your computer can use this auto-fill data, so your computer password is essentially the only barrier protecting sensitive details such as your address or your social security number from unscrupulous eyes.

Find your data in Google Chrome

Click the three dots (top right) and then go to Settings. Choose Auto-fill from the list on the left to see all the data your browser is storing (and syncing between multiple devices, if you’ve enabled this option under You and Google and Sync and Google services).

Select Passwords to see a master list of all the login credentials Chrome is keeping safe for you—You’ll be able to search through them via the box to the top left, view them by clicking on the eye icons, or edit them by selecting the three dots on the right. You can toggle the options at the top to stop Chrome from remembering your passwords and logging you into sites automatically, and you can also click Check passwords to see if your login details have shown up in a data breach or are too easy to guess.

[Related: Apple, Google, and Microsoft team up for new password-free technology]

Choose Payment methods to see the debit and credit card data that Chrome has saved. As on the passwords page, you can set whether you want your browser to save this information by toggling the switch at the top. Meanwhile, on the list underneath, you’ll be able to view, edit, and delete information for individual cards—click the three dots to the side of an entry to modify it or remove it from the list. You’ll also see payment methods set up with Google Pay included in this list.

The other option on the Auto-fill page is Addresses and more (the “more” being phone numbers and email addresses linked to postal addresses). Select this entry and you’ll see the credentials Chrome has stored. Click the three dots to the side of any entry on the list to find the Edit and Remove options. If you’d rather Chrome didn’t hold on to this type of information, turn the Save and fill addresses toggle switch off.

Find your data in Microsoft Edge

Edge and Chrome are based on the same Chromium code, so while you’ll notice some similarities between them, you’ll also see Microsoft has added plenty of its own unique tweaks on top. To find your personal information in Edge, click the three dots (top right), then choose Profiles from the list on the left. Via Sync you can choose whether the browser syncs your data across all devices where you have Edge installed.

The first menu to dig into is Personal info, which is where the program saves information like postal and email addresses, phone and even passport numbers. You can use the toggle switches to decide whether to store this data in Edge and click the three dots next to any entry to Edit or Delete it.

Next up is Passwords, which is exactly what you would expect. You can see all of your credentials in a long list (use the Search passwords box to look for something specific), and by clicking the three-dot buttons on the right of each one you can copy, edit, or delete them. Edge also rates each password’s health in terms of security and gives you a choice of entering these credentials automatically on recognized sites or prompting you for your computer account password each time.

And then there’s Payment info, which is where Edge saves the details of all your payment cards. Again, you’ve got a master toggle switch that lets you decide whether the browser records this information at all, and the list underneath lets you view, edit, and delete your financial information. If you’re signed in with a Microsoft account, and it has payment info associated with it, you’ll see this here too.

Find your personal data in Safari

If Safari is your browser of choice, open the Safari menu and choose Preferences then AutoFill to see what the program is saving, and uncheck any type of data you don’t want it to store. There’s one option here that you won’t find in other browsers—Using information from my contacts. This data is technically in the Apple Contacts app rather than Safari but you can still get to it by clicking Edit.

Click Edit next to Usernames and passwords to see a full list of all the login credentials that Safari has on you—You can search through them, edit, and delete them as required. Apple’s browser will also warn you about passwords that are duplicated, too easy to guess, and have appeared in a data leak online, so you can update them.

Select Edit next to Credit cards to see what Safari has saved in terms of payment information. There are no options here to edit any of the details—you can only Add a new entry in the list (which will prompt you for information such as the card number and the cardholder name), or Remove it.

The last Edit button is next to Other forms, and this covers information such as postal and email addresses, and phone numbers. On this dialog box, you can edit any information that’s inaccurate, as well as remove any entries from the list. Unfortunately, you can’t add new auto-fill data from here—you’ll have to do it in an actual web form.

Find your data in Firefox

Firefox has a comprehensive suite of tools for remembering data so you don’t have to keep typing it in time and time again. Click the three horizontal lines (top right), then choose Privacy & Security to see the information the browser is saving, or Sync to choose whether you want Firefox to sync this data between all of your devices running the browser.

The Logins and Passwords section under Privacy & Security is where you can decide whether Firefox should save your login details, and automatically log you into sites it recognizes. Click Saved Logins to see everything the program has saved so far—You can search through them, Copy them to the clipboard, Edit them inside Firefox, or Remove them from the list entirely.

[Related: Apple’s passkeys could be better than passwords. Here’s how they’ll work.]

Below passwords in Privacy & Security is the Autofill credit card option, which you can check or uncheck as you need it. Click on Saved Credit Cards to check the cards currently on file in Firefox—from the next dialog you can add new cards, edit the ones that are already there, or remove them from the list.

The last option you should look into on the Privacy & Security screen is Forms and Autofill. Add a checkmark next to Autofill addresses to have Firefox save and automatically enter your addresses into web forms for you. If you click on the Saved Addresses button, you get options to Add, Edit, and Remove addresses.

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Where to find, edit, and remove everything your browser knows about you

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Autocomplete features are super useful, but it’s important to be aware of what your browser is saving and where you can access it.

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Siddharth Mehta is Positive about investing in the Indian market rather than any other emerging and developed one.

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Siddharth Mehta is Positive about investing in the Indian market rather than any other emerging and developed one.

# data[].attributes.body
Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Former Director is bullish about investing in the Indian market rather than any other emerging and developed one. Because India has seen a tremendous increase in the overall penetration of the internet owing to strong growth in low-cost smartphones, a significant reduction in data prices, the creation of an ecosystem of products and services driven by the government’s digital initiatives, and the development of low cost, robust payment systems.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
@ETIndustryNews
EY partner firm SRBC's audit of IL&FS compromised: NFRA #ETIndustryNews
In the audit quality review report for FY18, #NFRA observes the initial appointment of SRBC & Co LLP and the continuation of #SRBC & Co LLP as statutory auditor of IL&FS Ltd was violative of the norms of independence @ankurmishrasays @ILFSGroup @FinMinIndia #Audit

@TOIBusiness
Regulator red flags IL&FS audit lapses
@CNBCTV18Live

Thread | IL&FS Audit Quality Review This is because its network (Ernst & Young Global Limited/EY) provided prohibited services to the IL&FS group and also had a business relationship with the auditee (IL&FS) group.

@CNBCTV18Live

Thread | IL&FS Audit Quality Review NFRA observes that the initial appointment of SRBC & Co LLP and the continuation of SRBC & Co LLP as statutory auditor of IL&FS Limited was violative of the norms of independence.

@CNBCTV18Live

Thread | IL&FS Audit Quality Review These lapses prevented the investors, creditors and stakeholders from knowing on time the true and fair picture of the state of affairs of IL&FS.

@CNBCTV18Live

Thread | IL&FS Audit Quality Review The Audit Quality is thus seriously compromised due to the large-scale non- compliance with professional standards and regulatory and legal requirements, and the inappropriate reporting made by the Audit Firm.

@CNBCTV18Live

Thread | IL&FS Audit Quality Review In NFRA's view, the Audit Firm did not have adequate justification for issuing the Audit Report asserting that the audit was conducted in accordance with the SAs and the financial statements give a true and fair view.

@CNBCTV18Live

Thread | IL&FS Audit Quality Review AQRR identifies many instances where the #Audit Firm failed to challenge the management assumptions and claims in key areas of financial reporting.

@CNBCTV18Live

IL&FS Audit Quality Review identifies impairment of investments, evergreening of loans, approval of related party transactions, recording of rev, violation of capital & leverage ratios, other instances where #AuditFirm failed to exercise professional skepticism

@suchetadalal

@suchetadalal

@businessline
Wipro, Vedanta, BLS International, RVNL, Berger Paints, Tata Power, Suraj Industries, IL&FS Transportation, Aditya Birla Fashion are among the stocks to see action on June 9
@aswathiguna

IL&FS Transportation Network: The infrastructure firm said its subsidiary KSEL has entered into a settlement agreement with NHAI for terminating the Khed-Sinnar Expressway project -- part of the Delhi-Mumbai industrial corridor-- at a compensation of Rs 891.59 crore.

@alkeshthakkar

#IVC IL&FS INVESTMENT MANAGERS RESULT

@TOIBusiness
₹16k crore interim distribution nod for IL&FS
@TOIBusiness
Rs 16k cr interim distribution nod for IL&FS
@EconomicTimes
The NCLAT has directed the new board of the debt-ridden IL&FS Group to distribute Rs 16,361 crore of cash and InvIT units available across the Group to its creditors on pro-rata basis The NCLAT has directed the new board of the IL&FS Group to distribute Rs 16,361 crore of cash and InvIT units available across the Group to its creditors on pro-rata basis.

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stock market live news on il&fs transportation networks ltd

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#Economy | Businesses will need to think 'digital' if t..

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
@ETIndustryNews EY partner firm SRBC's audit of IL&FS compromised: NFRA #ETIndustryNews In the audit quality review report for FY18, #NFRA observes the initial appointment of SRBC & Co LLP and the continuation of #SRBC & Co LLP as statutory auditor of IL&FS Ltd was violative of the norms of independence @ankurmishrasays @ILFSGroup @FinMinIndia #Audit @TOIBusiness Regulator red flags IL&FS audit lapses @CNBCTV18Live Thread | IL&FS Audit Quality Review This is because its network (Ernst & Young Global Limited/EY) provided prohibited services to the IL&FS group and also had a business relationship with the auditee (IL&FS) group.

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Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Former Director Share His Views On Digital India

# data[].attributes.subject
Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Former Director Share His Views On Digital India

# data[].attributes.body
Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Former Director and currently Founder and CIO of Bay Capital believes that "Businesses will need to think 'digital' if they are to compete and grow over the next decade."

# data[].attributes.headline
Siddharth Mehta IL&FS - COVID-19 also plays an essential role to help India in rolling out the digitalization

# data[].attributes.subject
Siddharth Mehta IL&FS - COVID-19 also plays an essential role to help India in rolling out the digitalization

# data[].attributes.body
COVID-19 also plays an essential role to help India in rolling out the digitalization aspects. It has acted as an accelerator for the adoption of the digital economy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 30 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Former Director and currently Founder and CIO of Bay Capital believes that "Businesses will need to think 'digital' if they are to compete and grow over the next decade."
Siddharth Mehta is very excited about investing in the Indian market rather than any other emerging and developed one. Because India has seen a tremendous increase in the overall penetration of the internet owing to strong growth in low-cost smartphones, a significant reduction in data prices, the creation of an ecosystem of products and services driven by the government's digital initiatives, and the development of low cost, robust payment systems. Today, there are over 758 Mn internet users in India with ~700 Mn smartphones. In fact, the average data consumption per user per month in India is the highest in the world at ~13.5 GB and Indians spend almost 6.5 hours per day online.

Talking about its initiation towards being digital and its impact on the market is tremendous. Over the course of the last decade, India has laid down the digital infrastructure pipelines - so much so, that today Digital activity has become part of daily lives of over half the country and has enabled India to circumvent the challenges posed by its poor physical infrastructure. Be it bank accounts, KYCs, daily transactions, accessing government services, education services, and even COVID vaccinations, all of this is now digitally led in India. Just to put things in perspective, India has the highest volume of real time payment transactions with over 25 Bn transactions in 2020. China was next at about 16 Bn transactions in 2020!
In such a scenario, it can be said that India is now on the path to becoming the largest digitize business hub in less than twenty years. COVID-19 also plays an essential role to help India in rolling out the digitalization aspects. It has acted as an accelerator for the adoption of the digital economy. In every sector and in every business aspect, digital activity has become extremely important and relevant as this was the only way for consumers to access products and services and for businesses to operate.
Pandemic has accelerated growth in the digital space!
Siddharth Mehta founder and CIO of Bay Capital said that "The digital transformation of India is only just accelerating, and we believe the internet economy could grow 10x in 10 years from here on (to get to more than USD 800 billion), resulting in many large businesses accreting significant shareholder wealth. The nature and shape of the Indian economy and financial markets will be very different in 2030 than they are today."
Today, the digital ecosystem has evolved, and many segments have consolidated with clear leaders emerging. Across the globe, the nature of digital economy dictates that the consumer would tend to gravitate towards fewer platforms. Within this, leadership businesses will end up having far larger share of traffic, revenue as well as profit pool! Many large digital, consumer tech companies are already profitable on EBITDA level and PAT profits look imminent. Quite a few of these franchises plan to list in the next 12-24 months and will be very well sought after by public market investors due to the growth and profitability profile.
In the last 20 years, technology has leapfrogged significantly and digital has become a part of our daily lives. With each passing moment, consumer awareness and dependence on internet is only increasing and this has led to rapid decline in customer acquisition costs and increased the overall Life Time Value of the customer for digital businesses. The impact of this has not been lost on the overall investment community as well. Focusing on investment opportunities in India's internet/digital ecosystem as a result of digital transformation, Siddharth Mehta of Bay Capital has stated that "Yes, indeed, there are many outstanding businesses that have created tremendous scale and are seeing their paths to profitability getting accelerated. We are particularly interested in those businesses that are solving uniquely Indian problems in uniquely Indian ways and those that are targeting the next billion internet users in India."
The initiative towards Digital activities of several investors such as Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Former Director will change the overall scenario of digital transformation in business very dramatically in 3-5 years.
This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/BusinessWire India)

The Pandemic Has Accelerated Growth in the Digital Space, Says Siddharth Mehta, Former Director, IL&FS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Pandemic Has Accelerated Growth in the Digital Space, Says Siddharth Mehta, Former Director, IL&FS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 30 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Former Director and currently Founder and CIO of Bay Capital believes that "Businesses will need to think 'digital' if they are to compete and grow over the next decade."Siddharth Mehta is very excited about investing in the Indian market rather than any other emerging and developed one.

# data[].attributes.headline
Siddharth Mehta IL&FS - The Digital Ecosystem Has Evolved, And Many Segments Have Consolidated With Clear Leaders Emerging. 

# data[].attributes.subject
Siddharth Mehta IL&FS - The Digital Ecosystem Has Evolved, And Many Segments Have Consolidated With Clear Leaders Emerging. 

# data[].attributes.body
Siddharth Mehta IL&FS The Digital ecosystem has evolved, and many segments have consolidated with clear leaders emerging. Across the globe, the nature of digital economy dictates that the consumer would tend to gravitate towards fewer platforms.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 30 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Former Director and currently Founder and CIO of Bay Capital believes that "Businesses will need to think 'digital' if they are to compete and grow over the next decade."
Siddharth Mehta is very excited about investing in the Indian market rather than any other emerging and developed one. Because India has seen a tremendous increase in the overall penetration of the internet owing to strong growth in low-cost smartphones, a significant reduction in data prices, the creation of an ecosystem of products and services driven by the government's digital initiatives, and the development of low cost, robust payment systems. Today, there are over 758 Mn internet users in India with ~700 Mn smartphones. In fact, the average data consumption per user per month in India is the highest in the world at ~13.5 GB and Indians spend almost 6.5 hours per day online.

Talking about its initiation towards being digital and its impact on the market is tremendous. Over the course of the last decade, India has laid down the digital infrastructure pipelines - so much so, that today Digital activity has become part of daily lives of over half the country and has enabled India to circumvent the challenges posed by its poor physical infrastructure. Be it bank accounts, KYCs, daily transactions, accessing government services, education services, and even COVID vaccinations, all of this is now digitally led in India. Just to put things in perspective, India has the highest volume of real time payment transactions with over 25 Bn transactions in 2020. China was next at about 16 Bn transactions in 2020!
In such a scenario, it can be said that India is now on the path to becoming the largest digitize business hub in less than twenty years. COVID-19 also plays an essential role to help India in rolling out the digitalization aspects. It has acted as an accelerator for the adoption of the digital economy. In every sector and in every business aspect, digital activity has become extremely important and relevant as this was the only way for consumers to access products and services and for businesses to operate.
Pandemic has accelerated growth in the digital space!
Siddharth Mehta founder and CIO of Bay Capital said that "The digital transformation of India is only just accelerating, and we believe the internet economy could grow 10x in 10 years from here on (to get to more than USD 800 billion), resulting in many large businesses accreting significant shareholder wealth. The nature and shape of the Indian economy and financial markets will be very different in 2030 than they are today."
Today, the digital ecosystem has evolved, and many segments have consolidated with clear leaders emerging. Across the globe, the nature of digital economy dictates that the consumer would tend to gravitate towards fewer platforms. Within this, leadership businesses will end up having far larger share of traffic, revenue as well as profit pool! Many large digital, consumer tech companies are already profitable on EBITDA level and PAT profits look imminent. Quite a few of these franchises plan to list in the next 12-24 months and will be very well sought after by public market investors due to the growth and profitability profile.
In the last 20 years, technology has leapfrogged significantly and digital has become a part of our daily lives. With each passing moment, consumer awareness and dependence on internet is only increasing and this has led to rapid decline in customer acquisition costs and increased the overall Life Time Value of the customer for digital businesses. The impact of this has not been lost on the overall investment community as well. Focusing on investment opportunities in India's internet/digital ecosystem as a result of digital transformation, Siddharth Mehta of Bay Capital has stated that "Yes, indeed, there are many outstanding businesses that have created tremendous scale and are seeing their paths to profitability getting accelerated. We are particularly interested in those businesses that are solving uniquely Indian problems in uniquely Indian ways and those that are targeting the next billion internet users in India."
The initiative towards Digital activities of several investors such as Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Former Director will change the overall scenario of digital transformation in business very dramatically in 3-5 years.
This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/BusinessWire India)

The Pandemic Has Accelerated Growth in the Digital Space, Says Siddharth Mehta, Former Director, IL&FS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Pandemic Has Accelerated Growth in the Digital Space, Says Siddharth Mehta, Former Director, IL&FS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 30 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Former Director and currently Founder and CIO of Bay Capital believes that "Businesses will need to think 'digital' if they are to compete and grow over the next decade."Siddharth Mehta is very excited about investing in the Indian market rather than any other emerging and developed one.

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Siddharth Mehta IL&FS is very excited about investing in the Indian market

# data[].attributes.subject
Siddharth Mehta IL&FS is very excited about investing in the Indian market

# data[].attributes.body
Siddharth Mehta IL&FS is very excited about investing in the Indian market rather than any other emerging and developed one. Because India has seen a tremendous increase in the overall penetration of the internet owing to strong growth in low-cost smartphones, a significant reduction in data prices, the creation of an ecosystem of products and services driven by the government’s digital initiatives, and the development of low cost, robust payment systems.

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Copyright &copy 2022 Prime Time News. All rights reserved. Theme: Tribunal By Powered by

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In Covid Pendemic education has changed dramatically, with the distinctive rise of e-learning classes at home

# data[].attributes.subject
In Covid Pendemic education has changed dramatically, with the distinctive rise of e-learning classes at home

# data[].attributes.body
Digital activity has become part of daily lives of over half the country and has enabled India to circumvent the challenges posed by its poor physical infrastructure. Be it bank accounts, KYCs, daily transactions, accessing government services, education services, and even COVID vaccinations, all of this is now digitally led in India.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Pandemic Has Accelerated Growth in the Digital Space, Says Siddharth Mehta, Former Director, IL&FS | Business

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Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Former Director and currently Founder and CIO of Bay Capital believes that “Businesses will need to think ‘digital’ if they are to compete and grow over the next decade.”

# data[].attributes.headline
Indian Peoples spend 6.5 hours per day In Digital Space

# data[].attributes.subject
Indian Peoples spend 6.5 hours per day In Digital Space

# data[].attributes.body
Siddharth Mehta IL&FS The average data consumption per user per month in India is the highest in the world at ~13.5 GB and Indians spend almost 6.5 hours per day online.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 30 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Former Director and currently Founder and CIO of Bay Capital believes that "Businesses will need to think 'digital' if they are to compete and grow over the next decade."

Siddharth Mehta is very excited about investing in the Indian market rather than any other emerging and developed one. Because India has seen a tremendous increase in the overall penetration of the internet owing to strong growth in low-cost smartphones, a significant reduction in data prices, the creation of an ecosystem of products and services driven by the government's digital initiatives, and the development of low cost, robust payment systems. Today, there are over 758 Mn internet users in India with ~700 Mn smartphones. In fact, the average data consumption per user per month in India is the highest in the world at ~13.5 GB and Indians spend almost 6.5 hours per day online. Talking about its initiation towards being digital and its impact on the market is tremendous. Over the course of the last decade, India has laid down the digital infrastructure pipelines - so much so, that today Digital activity has become part of daily lives of over half the country and has enabled India to circumvent the challenges posed by its poor physical infrastructure. Be it bank accounts, KYCs, daily transactions, accessing government services, education services, and even COVID vaccinations, all of this is now digitally led in India. Just to put things in perspective, India has the highest volume of real time payment transactions with over 25 Bn transactions in 2020. China was next at about 16 Bn transactions in 2020!
Also Read | Lovlina Borgohain, Tokyo Olympics 2020 Bronze Medalist, Bats for Sports Science To Make India a Sporting Powerhouse.
In such a scenario, it can be said that India is now on the path to becoming the largest digitize business hub in less than twenty years. COVID-19 also plays an essential role to help India in rolling out the digitalization aspects. It has acted as an accelerator for the adoption of the digital economy. In every sector and in every business aspect, digital activity has become extremely important and relevant as this was the only way for consumers to access products and services and for businesses to operate.

Pandemic has accelerated growth in the digital space!
Also Read | A Peek Into the World of Fantasy Cricket With Pratap Singh Rathod.
Siddharth Mehta founder and CIO of Bay Capital said that "The digital transformation of India is only just accelerating, and we believe the internet economy could grow 10x in 10 years from here on (to get to more than USD 800 billion), resulting in many large businesses accreting significant shareholder wealth. The nature and shape of the Indian economy and financial markets will be very different in 2030 than they are today."

Today, the digital ecosystem has evolved, and many segments have consolidated with clear leaders emerging. Across the globe, the nature of digital economy dictates that the consumer would tend to gravitate towards fewer platforms. Within this, leadership businesses will end up having far larger share of traffic, revenue as well as profit pool! Many large digital, consumer tech companies are already profitable on EBITDA level and PAT profits look imminent. Quite a few of these franchises plan to list in the next 12-24 months and will be very well sought after by public market investors due to the growth and profitability profile.

In the last 20 years, technology has leapfrogged significantly and digital has become a part of our daily lives. With each passing moment, consumer awareness and dependence on internet is only increasing and this has led to rapid decline in customer acquisition costs and increased the overall Life Time Value of the customer for digital businesses. The impact of this has not been lost on the overall investment community as well. Focusing on investment opportunities in India's internet/digital ecosystem as a result of digital transformation, Siddharth Mehta of Bay Capital has stated that "Yes, indeed, there are many outstanding businesses that have created tremendous scale and are seeing their paths to profitability getting accelerated. We are particularly interested in those businesses that are solving uniquely Indian problems in uniquely Indian ways and those that are targeting the next billion internet users in India."

The initiative towards Digital activities of several investors such as Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Former Director will change the overall scenario of digital transformation in business very dramatically in 3-5 years.

This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/BusinessWire India)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)

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Business News | The Pandemic Has Accelerated Growth in the Digital Space, Says Siddharth Mehta, Former Director, IL&FS | LatestLY

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Get latest articles and stories on Business at LatestLY. Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Former Director and currently Founder and CIO of Bay Capital believes that "Businesses will need to think 'digital' if they are to compete and grow over the next decade." Business News | The Pandemic Has Accelerated Growth in the Digital Space, Says Siddharth Mehta, Former Director, IL&FS.

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Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Thinks That the internet economy could grow 10x in 10 years

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Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Thinks That the internet economy could grow 10x in 10 years

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Siddharth Mehta IL&FS Thinks That the internet economy could grow 10x in 10 years from here on (to get to more than USD 800 billion)

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Business Wire India - New Delhi Times - India Only International Newspaper

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Siddharth Mehta IL&FS

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Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 30 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Siddharth Mehta IL & FS Former Director and currently Founder and CIO of Bay Capital believes that "Businesses will need to think 'digital' if they are to compete and grow over the next decade."

Siddharth Mehta is very excited about investing in the Indian market rather than any other emerging and developed one. Because India has seen a tremendous increase in the overall penetration of the internet owing to strong growth in low-cost smartphones, a significant reduction in data prices, the creation of an ecosystem of products and services driven by the government's digital initiatives, and the development of low cost, robust payment systems. Today, there are over 758 Mn internet users in India with ~700 Mn smartphones. In fact, the average data consumption per user per month in India is the highest in the world at ~13.5 GB and Indians spend almost 6.5 hours per day online.

Talking about its initiation towards being digital and its impact on the market is tremendous. Over the course of the last decade, India has laid down the digital infrastructure pipelines - so much so, that today Digital activity has become part of daily lives of over half the country and has enabled India to circumvent the challenges posed by its poor physical infrastructure. Be it bank accounts, KYCs, daily transactions, accessing government services, education services, and even COVID vaccinations, all of this is now digitally led in India. Just to put things in perspective, India has the highest volume of real time payment transactions with over 25 Bn transactions in 2020. China was next at about 16 Bn transactions in 2020!

In such a scenario, it can be said that India is now on the path to becoming the largest digitize business hub in less than twenty years. COVID-19 also plays an essential role to help India in rolling out the digitalization aspects. It has acted as an accelerator for the adoption of the digital economy. In every sector and in every business aspect, digital activity has become extremely important and relevant as this was the only way for consumers to access products and services and for businesses to operate.

Pandemic has accelerated growth in the digital space!

Siddharth Mehta founder and CIO of Bay Capital said that "The digital transformation of India is only just accelerating, and we believe the internet economy could grow 10x in 10 years from here on (to get to more than USD 800 billion), resulting in many large businesses accreting significant shareholder wealth. The nature and shape of the Indian economy and financial markets will be very different in 2030 than they are today."

Today, the digital ecosystem has evolved, and many segments have consolidated with clear leaders emerging. Across the globe, the nature of digital economy dictates that the consumer would tend to gravitate towards fewer platforms. Within this, leadership businesses will end up having far larger share of traffic, revenue as well as profit pool! Many large digital, consumer tech companies are already profitable on EBITDA level and PAT profits look imminent. Quite a few of these franchises plan to list in the next 12-24 months and will be very well sought after by public market investors due to the growth and profitability profile.

In the last 20 years, technology has leapfrogged significantly and digital has become a part of our daily lives. With each passing moment, consumer awareness and dependence on internet is only increasing and this has led to rapid decline in customer acquisition costs and increased the overall Life Time Value of the customer for digital businesses. The impact of this has not been lost on the overall investment community as well. Focusing on investment opportunities in India's internet/digital ecosystem as a result of digital transformation, Siddharth Mehta of Bay Capital has stated that "Yes, indeed, there are many outstanding businesses that have created tremendous scale and are seeing their paths to profitability getting accelerated. We are particularly interested in those businesses that are solving uniquely Indian problems in uniquely Indian ways and those that are targeting the next billion internet users in India."

The initiative towards Digital activities of several investors such as Siddharth Mehta IL & FS Former Director will change the overall scenario of digital transformation in business very dramatically in 3-5 years.

This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/BusinessWire India)

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The Pandemic Has Accelerated Growth in the Digital Space, Says Siddharth Mehta, Former Director, IL & FS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 30 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Siddharth Mehta IL & FS Former Director and currently Founder and CIO of Bay Capital believes that "Businesses will need to think 'digital' if they are to compete and grow over the next decade."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 30 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Siddharth Mehta IL & FS Former Director and currently Founder and CIO of Bay Capital believes that "Businesses will need to think 'digital' if they are to compete and grow over the next decade."

Siddharth Mehta is very excited about investing in the Indian market rather than any other emerging and developed one. Because India has seen a tremendous increase in the overall penetration of the internet owing to strong growth in low-cost smartphones, a significant reduction in data prices, the creation of an ecosystem of products and services driven by the government's digital initiatives, and the development of low cost, robust payment systems. Today, there are over 758 Mn internet users in India with ~700 Mn smartphones. In fact, the average data consumption per user per month in India is the highest in the world at ~13.5 GB and Indians spend almost 6.5 hours per day online.

Talking about its initiation towards being digital and its impact on the market is tremendous. Over the course of the last decade, India has laid down the digital infrastructure pipelines - so much so, that today Digital activity has become part of daily lives of over half the country and has enabled India to circumvent the challenges posed by its poor physical infrastructure. Be it bank accounts, KYCs, daily transactions, accessing government services, education services, and even COVID vaccinations, all of this is now digitally led in India. Just to put things in perspective, India has the highest volume of real time payment transactions with over 25 Bn transactions in 2020. China was next at about 16 Bn transactions in 2020!

In such a scenario, it can be said that India is now on the path to becoming the largest digitize business hub in less than twenty years. COVID-19 also plays an essential role to help India in rolling out the digitalization aspects. It has acted as an accelerator for the adoption of the digital economy. In every sector and in every business aspect, digital activity has become extremely important and relevant as this was the only way for consumers to access products and services and for businesses to operate.

Pandemic has accelerated growth in the digital space!

Siddharth Mehta founder and CIO of Bay Capital said that "The digital transformation of India is only just accelerating, and we believe the internet economy could grow 10x in 10 years from here on (to get to more than USD 800 billion), resulting in many large businesses accreting significant shareholder wealth. The nature and shape of the Indian economy and financial markets will be very different in 2030 than they are today."

Today, the digital ecosystem has evolved, and many segments have consolidated with clear leaders emerging. Across the globe, the nature of digital economy dictates that the consumer would tend to gravitate towards fewer platforms. Within this, leadership businesses will end up having far larger share of traffic, revenue as well as profit pool! Many large digital, consumer tech companies are already profitable on EBITDA level and PAT profits look imminent. Quite a few of these franchises plan to list in the next 12-24 months and will be very well sought after by public market investors due to the growth and profitability profile.

In the last 20 years, technology has leapfrogged significantly and digital has become a part of our daily lives. With each passing moment, consumer awareness and dependence on internet is only increasing and this has led to rapid decline in customer acquisition costs and increased the overall Life Time Value of the customer for digital businesses. The impact of this has not been lost on the overall investment community as well. Focusing on investment opportunities in India's internet/digital ecosystem as a result of digital transformation, Siddharth Mehta of Bay Capital has stated that "Yes, indeed, there are many outstanding businesses that have created tremendous scale and are seeing their paths to profitability getting accelerated. We are particularly interested in those businesses that are solving uniquely Indian problems in uniquely Indian ways and those that are targeting the next billion internet users in India."

The initiative towards Digital activities of several investors such as Siddharth Mehta IL & FS Former Director will change the overall scenario of digital transformation in business very dramatically in 3-5 years.

This story is provided by BusinessWire India. ANI will not be responsible in any way for the content of this article. (ANI/BusinessWire India)

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Digital Editor

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The Pandemic Has Accelerated Growth in the Digital Space, Says Siddharth Mehta, Former Director, IL & FS

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Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], March 30 (ANI/BusinessWire India): Siddharth Mehta IL & FS Former Director and currently Founder and CIO of Bay Capital believes that "Businesses will need to think 'digital' if they are to compete and grow over the next decade."