KNOWLEDGE+IMAGINATION=INNOVATION

The Story of Bottled Water, employs the Story of Stuff style to tell the story of manufactured demand—how you get Americans to buy more than half a billion bottles of water every week when it already flows from the tap. Over five minutes, the film explores the bottled water industrys attacks on tap water and its use of seductive, environmental-themed advertising to cover up the mountains of plastic waste it produces. The film concludes with a call to take back the tap, not only by making a personal commitment to avoid bottled water, but by supporting investments in clean, available tap water for all.

The AWBI(Animal Welfare Board of India) has filed a case on Wednesday 25th of January that the Amendment passed by the State Government of Tamilnadu is violating the Judgement of the Supreme Court. And the case is will came to hearing by the next monday 30th of January.

With the improvement in cash situation, the Reserve Bank today more than doubled the daily ATM   withdrawal   limit to Rs 10,000 but retained the weekly ceiling at Rs 24,000 which bankers feel will be gradually relaxed. RBI   also doubled the weekly withdrawal   limit   from current accounts to Rs 1 lakh from Rs 50,000 - a move which will ease cash position of traders.   "On a review of limits placed on withdrawals from   ATM's   and current accounts, it has been decided to enhance the same, with immediate effect...," the central bank said in a notification.   RBI had earlier increased the daily withdrawal limit from ATM's to Rs 4,500 from Rs 2,500 effective January 1, just a day after 50-day   demonetization   period ended.   According to Bank of Maharashtra Executive Director R K Gupta, the relaxation by RBI is a clear indication that cash situation is easing.   About 75 per cent of ATM's of the bank are functioning round the clock, he said

The government may tweak the definition of the infrastructure sector in the upcoming budget to include low-cost or affordable housing, a move that would reduce costs for developers and attract investors, two people with the knowledge of the matter. The change is being proposed about a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced concessions on interest rates for low-cost housing loans under the Pradhan Mantri Aawas Yojana. "If we want housing for all by 2020, re-categorising affordable housing as infrastructure is essential. The government had sought feedback about this about a week ago," a person familiar with the development said. "I see this happening in the upcoming budget."  The government has been pushing Modi's pet project of providing about 20 million houses across India by 2020. IT has reached out to senior finance ministry officials and the Reserve Bank of India for feedback on the proposed change and how to prevent it from b

The ninth meeting of the GST Council today failed to break the deadlock over who gets to administer the Goods and Services Tax (GST). The states seek sole powers to control assessees with the annual turnover of up to Rs 1.5 crore. But Centre is not in favor of a horizontal split as it feels states do not have the expertise to administer levies like service tax.  Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who heads the GST Council, said after the meeting that the deadline to roll out GST might be deferred   to July 1. The next date for the meeting hasn't been decided yet.  Jaitley had hoped to resolve the pending issues to get the new indirect tax regime rolling from April 1 so that there was no need to include indirect taxes in the Budget.  The uncertainty over the date of the GST rollout has become a big problem for this year's Budget. The Budget was not expected to include excise duties and service tax as the government was hopeful of rolling out GST from April 1, 2017

The  real estate  industry in India was badly hit by the drop in  sales  in the last  quarter  of 2016 following  demonetisation . Excerpts from a report by Knight Frank  Market buoyant in Jan-Jun '16   With sales looking up in the first half of 2016 and the third quarter beginning on a positive note, the expectation was sales would increase by 4% in the second half.   Figures are number of units sold across Mumbai, NCR, Pune, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Ahmedabad   Sales fell sharply in Oct-Dec   Demonetisation pulled down last quarter sales across all cities. Despite one third of the fourth quarter being the festive season, sales fell by 40%.   The recovery predicted for the second half of the year did not materialise.   Launches were put off for later   The launch rate stumbled by as much as 45% over the previous quarter.   Oct-Dec 2016 could not maintain the launch run rate of the previous three quarters.   Both industry and the government lost