Quick notes: Loan waiver for all, Laundry business...

• Populism gone wild: Kangress promises 'farm loan waiver for all'.

Rahul Gandhi slams govt’s cash transfer scheme, promises farm loan waiver across Indiahttps://t.co/SgTjMu4zKC pic.twitter.com/toCU3R7jiE

— Hindustan Times (@htTweets) February 3, 2019




• RCom Bankruptcy: How India’s banks ran up a $7 Billion phone bill



• Urgent need to connect bank databases: Shell companies have been used extensively for laundering the proceeds of crime. They thrive as bank databases are unconnected. In the Nirav Modi case, there was a Swift database, Punjab National Bank’s core banking system and the foreign exchange transactions database. All the three databases were not automatically connected.



• How London's streets are paved with dirty money.
  . The City of London: Capital of an Invisible Empire.
  . London’s Laundry Business: Billions of pounds of corruptly gained money has been laundered by criminals and foreign officials buying upmarket London properties through anonymous offshore front companies – making the city arguably the world capital of money laundering.

. The tax haven in the heart of London: It is the hub of a global network of tax havens sucking up offshore trillions from around the world and sending it, or the business of handling it, to London. 



• Hats-off to whoever made this possible: Bengaluru’s 75-year-old Selvamma goes high-tech using a solar-powered fan to grill corn on the roadside.

pic.twitter.com/8mQOts7maK

— Raghurama Sastry M (@raghu_madgula) January 24, 2019




• 'Complete Streets': Planning should factor in all people using our streets, not just drivers. "When you plan just for cars, you get cars, and we now have so many that traffic is horrendous and getting worse, it just won’t work anymore". It translates to roads being reduced and lanes narrowed, parking spaces eliminated, bike lanes added and the walk from curb to curb shortened.



• China Is A Naval Powerhouse: China shipyards build civilian and military ships at the same time and most if not whole R&D and staff cost is dumped on civilain market. US navy shipiards not only don't do civilian ships but mostly have narrow specialization.



• Why our screens make us less happy: