The International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Tuesday cut its economic growth forecast for India to 9.5 per cent for the fiscal year to 31 March 2022 as the onset of a severe second Covid-19 wave cut into recovery momentum. This forecast is lower than the 12.5 per cent growth in GDP that IMF had projected in April before the second wave took a grip.

IMF’s chief economist Gita Gopinath said the revision in growth forecast reflects an important “extent differences” in coronavirus disease (Covid-19) developments as the highly contagious Delta variant is becoming dominant across the world.

“Faster-than-expected vaccination rates and return to normalcy have led to upgrades, while lack of access to vaccines and renewed waves of Covid-19 cases in some countries, notably India, have led to downgrades,” Gopinath, economic counsellor and director of the research department at the IMF, said in a blog post.

For 2022-23, IMF expects economic growth of 8.5 per cent, larger than the 6.9 per cent it had projected in April.

“Growth prospects in India have been downgraded following the severe second Covid wave during March-May and expected slow recovery in confidence from that setback,” IMF said in its latest World Economic Outlook (WEO).

India’s economy is gradually recovering from a deep contraction in the fiscal year ended 31 March 2021 (7.3 per cent) and a subsequent severe second wave of Covid-19.

IMF joins a host of global and domestic agencies which have cut India’s growth estimates for the current fiscal. Last month, S&P Global Ratings projected a 9.5 per cent GDP growth in the current fiscal and 7.8 per cent in 2022-23.

While World Bank sees GDP growth at 8.3 per cent from April 2021 to March 2022, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) last week downgraded India’s economic growth forecast to 10 per cent from 11 per cent estimated in April. As for Moody’s, it has projected India clocking 9.3 per cent growth in the current fiscal ending March 2022. For 2021 calendar year, Moody’s has cut the growth estimate sharply to 9.6 per cent.

The GDP, which shrank from $2.87 trillion in 2019-20 to $2.66 trillion in the following year, is estimated to reach around $4 trillion in 2024-25.

Overall, the global economy is projected to grow 6 per cent in 2021 and 4.9 per cent in 2022. The 2021 global growth forecast is unchanged from the April 2021 WEO, but with offsetting revisions, the report said.

Basavaraj Bommai, 61, a leader of the dominant Lingayat community and a close associate of B.S. Yediyurappa, was announced the new Chief Minister of Karnataka on Tuesday, following Yediyurappa’s resignation after two years at the helm. Chief Minister-designate Bommai on Tuesday said he would strive to offer relief to people affected by Covid-19 and floods, and improve the economic condition of the state hit by the pandemic.

“I will work day and night to offer relief to the people in distress due to Covid or the recent floods. I will initiate all steps to improve the economic condition of the state in the coming days,” Bommai told reporters.

Following pounding rains, parts of the state had witnessed floods in recent days. Soon after he was elected as the new leader of the BJP Legislature Party, Bommai thanked the BJP leaders, especially Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and outgoing Chief Minister Yediyurappa who reposed faith in him to lead the state.

He said he would work hard to live up to the expectations of the Prime Minister and Yediyurppa on the development front. “I will win everyone’s trust with the help of my cabinet colleagues, and my party workers,” Bommai said. He said the seniors in the party have blessed him and he would take everyone along. Home district Haveri burst into jubilation and celebrations after the news break that Bommai will be the next Chief Minister replacing Yediyurappa. Shiggaon town in the district from where Bommai got elected to the Karnataka Assembly burst into jubilation. Bommai’s supporters hit the road, burst crackers and raised slogans in favour of their leader.

The 61-year-old, son of former Chief Minister late S.R. Bommai, was elected as leader of the BJP legislature party in Bengaluru. Bommai’s name was proposed by Yediyurappa at the Karnataka BJP legislature party meeting Tuesday evening, sources said. The other frontrunners were central BJP leader B.L. Santhosh, a Brahmin; Union Minister Pralhad Joshi, a Brahmin; and Arvind Bellad, an MLA with no administrative experience but who hails from the numerically large Panchamshali Lingayat group. Two last-minute contenders were S Angara, a six-time MLA from a Scheduled Caste community, who has been described as “a loyal worker” of the BJP and RSS from the coastal region, and Deputy Chief Minister from the Yediyurappa cabinet Govind Karjol, who is a close associate of the former Chief Minister.

The BJP legislature party met on Tuesday night at a hotel in Bengaluru to pick the new leader, with Karnataka in-charge Arun Singh and central observers Dharmendra Pradhan and Kishan Reddy supervising the process. The BJP is looking at completing the formalities of the appointment by Thursday. WITH AGENCY INPUTS

Even as India reported fewer than 30,000 daily Covid-19 cases for the first time in 132 days, a new study published in The Lancet has rekindled apprehensions over the efficacy of Covid vaccines. According to the study, the total antibody levels start to wane six weeks after complete immunisation with Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines, and can reduce by more than 50% over 10 weeks.

The researchers from the University College London (UCL) in the UK noted that if the antibody levels carry on dropping at this rate, there are concerns that the protective effects of the vaccines may also begin to wear off, particularly against new variants. However, they said, how soon that might happen cannot be predicted yet.

Antibody levels are substantially higher following two doses of the Pfizer vaccine than after two shots of the AstraZeneca preventive, known as Covishield in India, the UCL Virus Watch study added. Interestingly, antibody levels were also much higher in vaccinated people than those with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection. The findings based on data from over 600 people aged 18 and above were consistent across all groups of people regardless of age, chronic illnesses or sex, according to the researchers.

The authors highlight that although the clinical implications of waning antibody levels are not yet clear, some decline was expected and current research shows that vaccines remain effective against severe health complications. The researchers underlined that different people will have different levels of immunity depending on the virus neutralising ability of their antibodies as well as their T-cell responses.

Meanwhile, for the first time in 132 days, India reported fewer than 30,000 daily cases. As per the data shared by the Union Health Ministry, 29,689 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours while the death toll climbed to 4,21,382 with 415 daily fatalities. The latest dip in new cases took India›s active caseload less than 4,00,000 after 124 days, which now is at 3,98,100. 

Active cases constitute 1.27% of total cases. The Weekly Positivity Rate remains below 5%, currently at 2.33%, while the daily positivity rate at 1.73%, remains below 5%, the data further read. As per the data, India’s Cumulative Covid Vaccination Coverage surpassed 44.58 crore (44,58,39,699), as per the 7 pm provisional report on Tuesday. More than 36.87 lakh (36,87,239) vaccine doses were administered yesterday.

Suhaani Shah is disrupting and redefining the magic space in India with an ability to read minds with remarkable accuracy. The magician recently joined NewsX for an exclusive conversation as part of NewsX Influencer A-List and shared art of mentalism, how she learnt, experience of being a woman magician and much more.

Speaking about the concept of mentalism and who is a mentalist, she said, “In India, mentalist profession is not too popular. To explain in layman’s language, magic is the parent category under which there are different genres such as illusionism, escapology, street magic, parlour magic and mentalism. So, it is sub genres of magic. You can also call me a magician and as a magician, I expertise more as a mentalist. In mentalism, there are no props. It’s just mentalist and people and their minds become prop. Mentalist is a magician who does magic without props, just by trying to read or giving an illusion of reading people’s minds, influencing and getting information out from them.”

Talking about how she learnt mentalism, she shared, “I haven’t learnt it from anywhere but I started performing magic in general when I was 7 years old. In the process of doing stage shows, it was mixed of all magic genres. I used to do proper stage shows by traveling city to city. Few years back, I realised that was too much. If I wanted to get into corporate sector and level up my game, I need to do something because stand-up comedy had taken over the country. I realised it’s important to capitalize on that as well. So, what I did was, from an illusionist I started to adapt into mentalism. I did an entire show of mentalism and the videos went viral. I never took formal training for anything in terms of magic. My transformation was slow, but then, 2017 was the time when I turned into mentalist and decided to continue as I loved it the most.”

Sharing the advantages and disadvantages of being a women digital content creator in a digital space, she said, “There have been lots of disadvantages. Even before starting YouTube live streaming and taking up digital space, I was really worried of being trolled. But when I started, there was lot of love. I think I was overthinking negativity a lot. A lot of times, its projection of what you are doing. It was not that I never got negativity. What I realised, which I still do even after a year and having million subscribers on YouTube, is that I am not allowed to make mistakes as a woman. I have seen my co-streamers from the other gender making mistakes, which is taken in a fun. Although I am learning to be thick skin to negative comments but it still affects at sometimes. I have known my co-female creators getting threats just for being opinionated and putting out their views. I feel it’s just reflection of our culture, the more the women come out, face these things and be vocal about it, the safer space they’ll be creating for themselves. There are more men than women on internet, that needs to change. It will happen in its own time.”

When asked about what does it feels like to be a women magician, she responded, “The moment you say magician, nobody ever think of a woman and I don’t know why. It’s like an identity threat to me. To be honest, I didn’t think of this till a few years back when another journalist had asked me this question. I am not massively involved in Indian magic communities, so I didn’t know what’s scene there. I didn’t really think of pros and cons. I have to keep my guards up and keep myself safe. I just focus on my craft and work.”

She concluded by sharing her content creators community’s present needs and said, “What I think is needed is to create safe space on internet. I am speaking as a person on digital space. People commenting on internet needs to be kinder, people creating content needs to be more careful. It’s very important to be wise and thoughtful of what we are putting on internet.

David Nobo is a modern-day magician, illusionist, artist and content creator. His tricks leave people spell bound. David Nobo recently joined NewsX for an exclusive conversation as part of NewsX India A-List. In this exclusive conversation, he talked about his work as magician, kind of illusions he does, his experiences of virtual performances and much more.

Speaking about his work as magician, he said, “I am what they used to call a magician 15 years ago. But then I thank people for making magic clichéd. As soon as we decided to enter into corporate market, we decided to call ourselves ‘illusionist’, just to make magic great again.”

Talking about kind of illusions he does, he shared, “You could expect a lot of interactions, mind-reading, surprises, things appearing, disappearing, people coming up on stage and strange things happening to them, sometimes losing their memories. I play around with illusions that are both optical as visuals as well as psychological. I try to blend both to create a slightly different kind/brand of magic.”

When asked about what difference it makes to be physically out there on a stage vs. performing magic on a virtual platform,  he responded, “I look up to a magician from Las Vegas, who says that ‘all the world is stage’ like Shakespeare. You don’t really need a stage or platform to do magic. 20 years ago, I first started learning magic. After coming from school, I rushed into my room where I had a shoebox with tricks and apparatus in it. I would practice pretending to be on a stage and listening to imaginary applause. 20 years later, I am back in this room with my little box of trick, pretending to be on stage and listening to imaginary applause virtually.  I have given performing in the bedroom a whole new meaning.”

Telling about viability and feasibility of magic as a career option, he expressed, “It is a feasible career option because that’s what I have been doing for the last 15 years. I wouldn’t lie by saying that I have been sailing through Covid. No, it has been difficult. I had to re-adjust a lot of things. Magic doesn’t draw many people because the secret, which people think is the most important part of effect (which is not), is often uninteresting and it involves a lot of practice too. If you want anything enough, you are going to make it. You’ll take up decision and make that decision the right decision.”

Speaking about if going digital is the way forward as far as illusionist is concerned, he expressed, “Digital is part of way forward. No matter how much Covid or any other pandemic happens, nothing beats the human connection of a live show. But right now, going digital has been a blessing.”

Concluding the conversation by expressing the requirements of his and other Indian illusionists, he shared “We are craving for gigs and audience. Best thing about being able to do magic virtually is it is interactive. A lot of magicians need to up their game, understand their audiences and connect to them. Moving with time or being a little ahead of your time rather than behind is always better.”

The incidents of crime in Goa continue abated with news coming in of the alleged rape of two minors at seaside town of Benaulim in South Goa.

Two minor girls in their complaint to the Colva police station have alleged that they were raped at the Benaulim beachside on Sunday night.

Noted women’s right activist Auda Viegas, founder, Bailancho Ekvott, currently counseling the minors, told The Daily Guardian that the girls were chatting with their two male friends on the waterfront when they decided to go back home. At approximately 3:30 am, they saw a car on the beach with 4 people standing next to it. They impersonated as cops and threatened the girls while beating up their male friends with rods. They took one girl to the shrubs and the other in the car to sexually assault them. Even after trying to run away from the car, the accused caught up and raped the minors. They even taped the girls and tried to blackmail them for extorting money.

Goa police has arrested the four accused and they are being interrogated.