Don’t go by green shoots: Subbarao
A small diamond miner that has dug some of the world's most valuable gems from a mountainous African kingdom has found another huge stone.
Gem Diamonds Ltd said it had an unearthed a 442carat diamond at its Letseng mine in Lesotho. While it's hard to establish a price for such stones before cutters can evaluate them, it could sell for as much as $18 million, Edward Sterck, analyst at BMO Capital Markets, wrote in a note.
Given the rarity of such large stones, demand for big diamonds has traditionally been resilient.
The Letseng mine is famous for the size and quality of the diamonds it produces and has the highest average selling price in the world. Two years ago Gem Diamonds found a 910-carat stone, the size of two golf balls, that sold for $40 million.
The find comes as the global diamond industry has been brought to its knees by the pandemic. Jewellery stores have closed and India's cutting industry, which handles almost all of the world's stones, has come to a halt. The miners that dominate the industry, De Beers and Russian rival Alrosa PJSC, have seen their rough diamond sales collapse.
"The recovery of this remarkable 442 carat diamond, one of the world's largest gem quality diamonds to be recovered this year, is further confirmation of the calibre of the Letseng mine and its ability to consistently produce large, high quality diamonds," Clifford Elphick, Gem's chief executive officer, said in the statement.
—Bloomberg
Calling 'green shoots' of economic revival as a mechanical rebound, former RBI governor D Subbarao says India's short- and medium-term growth prospects to remain grim and the government should not read too much into the economic activity coming back from the depressed base of lockdown.
Before the Covid-19 crisis, the economy was in a slowdown—its real GDP growth had moderated from 7 per cent in 2017-18 to 6.1 per cent in 2018-19 and to 4.2 per cent in 201920.
"I don't believe we should read too much into the green shoots that you refer to. What we've been seeing is just a mechanical rebound from the depressed base of the lockdown; it will be misleading to see it as a signal of a durable recovery," Subbarao told PTI in an interview.
He said the "short-term as well as medium-term prospects (for the economy) continue to be grim".
"The pandemic is still spiralling, the number of daily cases is rising and it is spreading to newer regions," he added.
On India's medium-term growth prospect, the former RBI governor said that the economy was in a troubled state when the Covid-19 crisis hit India.
"When the crisis is behind us, and I hope that is soon enough, these problems are going to be much bigger. Fiscal deficit is going to be much higher, the debt burden much larger and the financial sector in a worse shape," he said.
The World Bank last week projected India's fiscal deficit to rise to 6.6 per cent of GDP in 2020-21 and remain elevated at 5.5 per cent in the following year. This compares to the 3.5 per cent target set by the government. "Our medium-term prospects will depend on how effectively we resolve these challenges," Subbarao said.
When asked for a positive sign, he noted that the rural economy has recovered better than the urban economy.
Online higher education has an opportunity to grow 10-fold by FY25, benefitting from tailwinds caused by Covid-19 and regulatory developments, including the new education policy. The online higher education space can become a $5 billion market by then, finds RedSeer Consulting.
Post- Covid, Indian institutions will be allowed to offer up to 40 per cent of their coursework online, up from 20 per cent earlier. Unbundling of courses and democratisation of access will boost demand for online education.
Moreover, the economic uncertainty will increase the need for continuous learning. While several skills will get redundant, high unemployment and an increasing skills gap will bring in a new urgency to the need for continuous learning in order to stay relevant in the job market. Mismatch between industry requirements and education curriculum in colleges also will see online education bridging the gap.
The government has set an ambitious target to double the enrolment in higher education to 50 per cent under the National Education Policy 2020. The policy aims for 50 per cent Gross Enrolment Ratio, from 26.3, in higher education, taking total enrolments to 92 million by 2035. Online offerings will play a critical role in enabling supply, innovation and democratising access to education.
The overall online higher education market will benefit from the new