Author: Loknath Das

PORTLAND, Ore. — Anthony Davis stole the show and the New Orleans Pelicans stole home-court advantage from the Portland Trail Blazers. Davis had 35 points, 14 rebounds and four blocks, Jrue Holiday and Rajon Rondo won the backcourt battle, and the Pelicans held on for a 97-95 victory on Saturday night in Game 1 of their Western Conference first-round series. Holiday added 21 points, outplaying both Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, and had a big blocked shot in the closing seconds as New Orleans escaped after Portland erased almost all of a 19-point deficit. “It’s the playoffs,” Holiday said of…

Brett Brown found it early on: a way of coping with what he’d been tasked to endure as coach of the Philadelphia 76ers and the notorious process. A peace that perhaps only he could’ve found. It feels like a long time ago. The 26-game losing streak. The nightly bashing fans had a choice of attending. The worst four-year period of any team in NBA history. That stage of the process was genuinely miserable to endure. So Brown ran. He had to. “Losing fatigues you,” Brown once told me. “You had to fight it.” Six days a week, 45 minutes a day. Sometimes…

David Kinley is Professor of Human Rights Law at Sydney University, Australia. He works in the field of human rights and the global economy, focusing presently on the human rights implications of global finance and corruption. His latest book,Necessary Evil: How to Fix Finance by Saving Human Rightspublished in the US last month (March 2018) by OUP, will be released worldwide in May. The most remarkable thing about financier BlackRock CEO Larry Fink’s latest letter exhorting corporate captains to develop a “social conscience” was not the media’s excited response – the NY Times called it “Wall Street’s watershed moment,” and Le Monde, an…

After amassing billions in debt and pushing a bold spending plan, Charif Souki was fired in 2015 by the liquefied natural gas company he founded. Now heading a new developer, he’s changing his plan of attack. Souki’s latest idea is to mostly deal debt out of the picture. The company he chairs, Tellurian Inc., is seeking investors to pay a total of $12 billion up front to fund the proposed Driftwood LNG export terminal in Louisiana. In return, they get a stake in the project and the ability to buy fuel at cost moving forward, with no markup based on…

Greece has suffered more than any European country since the 2007–8 global financial crisis. The governments that have held power between 2010 and 2018 have enacted several rounds of tax increases, spending cuts, and reforms. Austerity measures have triggered both local riots and nationwide protests. The uncertainty and economic decline that has plagued Greece has affected all spheres of society, but education has been particularly hard hit. Public spending has shrunk by 40 percent, and more than one hundred schools, as well as a number of university departments, have closed. Many Greek youth decide not to study at all or…

Imagine being an ambitious fresh graduate interviewing for a job 15 years ago. Recruiters would have asked about your degree programme, your grades and the nature of your extra-curricular activities. Today, the ante has been raised. New, additional demands are increasingly common. What overseas experience do you have? How did you value-add to the organisation you interned at? Do you have experience working with data? Are you agile enough to cope with change? Recruiters are now looking for demonstrations of aptitude that go beyond good grades. The Ministry of Education has recognised this and introduced policies to prepare future graduates…

While public sector banks are facing high accretion of non-performing assets (NPAs) in the education loans, leading to a marked slowdown in growth, non-banking finance companies (NBFC) are expanding their education loan books. Notably, over the last few years, several standalone education loan companies have come-up, and many of them are experimenting with new products too. Further, by adopting a student-led approach, which includes an overall academic screening of students, NBFCs are redefining the norms of education loan lending. Data from Reserve Bank of India shows, as on February 2018, total education loan outstanding stood at Rs 705 billion, against Rs 720 billion in February 2017, a fall of 2 per cent. At present,…

Mother and son were engaged in an unspoken dialogue over the open books that lay in front of them on the dining table. The mother tugged at the buttons of her sweater, her forehead crinkled. The son’s forehead crinkled even more as he pointed at a book and pushed a pencil to her hand. She shook her head and placed the pencil on the edge of the table, away from his reach. He sighed and folded his hands. It would be 30 more minutes of the Sunday morning ritual of denial and perseverance. I had a clear view of the…

Electronic Arts is bringing back real-money purchases to Star Wars Battlefront 2 next week. An update for the game arriving April 18 will let players purchase crystals, an in-game currency that players can spend on cosmetic upgrades. Battlefront 2’s crystals can be used to purchase “appearances,” in-game skins for playable characters, EA said in an announcement today. More than 50 appearances, including new Endor-themed looks for Han Solo and Leia Organa, will be added to the game as part of the game’s new update. Appearances can also be purchased with credits, which are earned through in-game activity, EA said. Crystals were originally…

The Toronto Maple Leafs talked at length this week about the importance of trying to contain Boston’s powerful top line in their first-round playoff series with the Bruins. There’s lots of work to be done in that department, and a host of others, after Thursday night. The trio of David Pastrnak, Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron combined for six points as the Bruins thumped the Leafs 5-1 in the opener of their Eastern Conference quarterfinal. “We’ve got to be better, obviously,” said Toronto head coach Mike Babcock, who had Marchand and Bergeron when all three were part of Canada’s team…