-The Hindu Business Line MSMEs face a credit gap of ₹25 lakh crore as formal lenders meet less than 15 per cent of the sector’s requirements Quarterly MSME loan disbursements have increased over two-fold in the last two years, but the approval rate for medium-risk MSMEs has seen no improvement — a reflection of the lender’s low risk appetite, according to venture capital firm BLinC Invest. The increase in disbursements has been made...

-The Hindu Business Line World over rice production is likely to fall due to a combination of drought and floods Three developments over the past couple of months have put the global rice market in focus. First, the India curbed rice exports by banning shipments of fully broken rice and imposing a 20 per cent duty on white rice exports. Second, Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar told the...

-The Hindu How are other export-dominated countries faring? Why is the government optimistic that domestic demand will counter the effects of declining exports? The story so far: India’s exports declined about 16.7% in October compared with the year-earlier period. This is the first slide reported for any month since February 2021. October imports rose at a much milder pace than earlier, most likely because of softening commodity prices worldwide, and trade deficit...

-The Hindu The West’s attempt to cut Russia’s oil revenues without drastically affecting global oil supplies may be too fine a balancing act in the longer run The Group of Seven (G7) countries, the European Union and Australia have imposed a price cap on Russian sea-borne oil to make it harder for Russia to fund its war against Ukraine. Under the plan, which took effect on December 5 , Western companies that...

-ThePrint.in In a study published in the Nature journal Wednesday, scientists attributed the methane growth in 2020 to wetland emission and changes in ‘atmospheric sink’. New Delhi: In 2020, the year Covid-19 pandemic led to global economic slowdown, researchers documented an alarming rise in atmospheric level of methane emissions, despite a drop in human-induced emissions. Scientists attributed the methane growth rate anomaly to lower hydroxyl radical (OH), which is the main remover of...