Google fined  £2.13bn (€2.4bn) by Brussels, as search dominance is abused

  Brussels has hit Google with a £2.13bn (€2.4bn)  antitrust fine fro abusing its dominance in search. The European Commission ended its seventh-year competition investigation concluding that the company had abused its near-monopoly in online search to “give illegal advantage” to its own shopping service. Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, said Google  “denied other…

120 tower blocks have now failed the  cladding safety tests

Theresa May promised  “major national Investigation” into the widespread use of flammable cladding on residential tower blocks. The newly elected Labour Mp Emma Dent Coad for Kensington complained that England’s building regulations had been “watered down”. to suit the fat cat developers and contractors. Even the Germany city of Wuppertal ordered the evacuation of a…

75 tower blocks failed fire safety tests on cladding

According to the Government, 75 tower blocks  from 25 councils have now failed the fire safety combustibility tests on cladding since the Grenfell Tower  fire disaster, blamed on buildings polyethylene insulation. Every panel testes has failed. In the past building materials passed building control officials are considered to be dangerous. The Association of British Insurers told ministers…

Fundamental mistake of the American Dream: Vanishing middle class

Peter Temin, an eminent professor Emeritus of economist at MIT offers an illuminating way to view vanishing middle class as the United States is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with few families in the middle. “The middle class was critical to the success of the United States in the twentieth century, as they…

Adaptive markets: It’s efficiency and failures

Andrew Lo, a professor at MIT, in his latest book, gives graphic evolutionary explanation of markets and investor behaviour. Half of Americans throw their dice in the stock market, yet economists can’t agree on if investors and markets are rational and efficient, as modern theory assumes , irrational and inefficient and as financial bubbles, crashes…

Kochi metro with solar panels

Kochi Metro, the newly inaugurated metro system for Kochi Metropolitan in Kerala, which includes sustainable initiatives with the introduction of non-motorised  transport corridors in the city, installation of solar panel for power and vertical garden on every fourth metro pillar and  the technology for driverless trains and is hoping to implement this in the near…

Cartosat launched by India

India has successfully put into orbit its own earth observation satellite Cartosat weighing 712kg, nano satellite NIUSAT and 29 foreign satellites weighing 243 kg from Austria, Belgium, UK, Chile, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and the US. The entire mission was completed in 23 minutes. According to ISRO, the images…

Volvo to take on Tesla

Volvo, the Swedish carmaker’s Chinese owners Geely Automative, has split out its Polestar division into a separate brand. Polestar would use its close links with Volvo to “design, develop and build world-beating electrical high-performance cars” and take on Tesla. The brand will also continue to create high-performance models for Volvo and the new business will…

Air India may be privatised

Indian Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said he favoured disinvestment of the loss-making state-owned airline Air India, to Private sector conglomerate Tata Group, who previously owned the airline 64 years back when it was nationalised. Tata Group’s new chairman N Chandrasekaran has held informal talk with the government for buying a 51 per cent equity majority…