India replaces China as top retail destination in 2017: Study

India has replaced China as the numero uno retail destination in 2017 as part of the global retail development index, according to industry experts. “India has replaced China this year as the top retail destination as part of the study on global retail development index,” AT Kearney partner Subhendu Roy said on the concluding day of the two-day India Retail Forum 2017. The change in ranking was an outcome of four factors including increased consumer spending, beyond essentials, rising mobile and internet penetration, favourable foreign investment climate and bold action…

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Indian assistant prof and solar energy expert selected as ‘young scientist’ to address BRICS meeting in China

Hyderabad An assistant professor of a city-based University of Hyderabad (UoH) has been selected as young scientist to participate in the second BRICS meeting, scheduled from July 11-15, at Hangzhou in China. Murali Banavoth, who recently joined as an assistant professor at School of Chemistry in UoH, will be addressing on the theme titled Solar Energy in the BRICS meeting, a release from the University said today. After obtaining his Ph D, from the Indian Institute of Science, Banavoth moved to King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) as post-doctoral…

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WeChat Seeks Even More China Clicks With New Mini-Apps

In a cluster of refurbished Mao-era industrial buildings in Guangzhou, developers at China’s top messaging app, WeChat, are redesigning key parts of its product to spread its tentacles to just about every aspect of Chinese life. Around 1,500 developers, mainly twentysomething males, have been tasked with increasing user engagement through new ‘mini-programs’ on WeChat that look and operate much like apps on Apple Inc’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems – but are far less data-intensive. WeChat, owned by Tencent Holdings, says it’s not a direct challenge to the dominant…

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Tesla’s China business is booming

Sacconaghi: Bullish on Tesla long-term  Thursday, 9 Mar 2017 | 12:20 PM ET | 05:46 Elon Musk’s Tesla is a growing player in China, where the global fight to develop electric, self-driving cars is raging hot. Hong-Kong traded Tencent, a company best known for its WeChat messaging app, disclosed in a Tuesday filing that it’s taken a 5 percent stake in Tesla for $1.78 billion. The investment follows Tencent’s new stake in taxi-hailing app Didi Chuxing, which can be accessed through WeChat. “I think Tencent likely wanted exposure to a company…

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China Confirms Human Bird Flu Case in Guizhou Province

Health authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guizhou have confirmed a new human case of H7N9 avian influenza, state radio said, bringing the total number of human infections of the highly pathogenic strain to 19 this winter. The 49-year old man, who is a chicken trader, was being treated in hospital in Qiannan prefecture, the report said on Sunday. The local authorities were taking precautions to try and prevent the infection from spreading, the report said. A total of 19 people have been infected with bird flu in China…

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China Uncovers 500,000 Food Safety Violations in Nine Months

China, rocked in recent years by a series of food safety scandals, uncovered as many as half a million illegal food safety violations in the first three quarters of the year, an official said. Chinese officials have unearthed a series of recent food health scandals, including rice contaminated with heavy metals, the use of recycled “gutter oil” in restaurants as well as the sale of baby formula containing lethal amounts of the industrial chemical melamine in 2008. Bi Jingquan, the head of the China Food and Drug Administration, told the…

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