TMS Ep344: Foreign universities, foreign waste, gold, cloud computing

For the first time, India looks all set to allow foreign universities and prominent institutions to open brick and mortar campuses here. It means that Indian students will get degrees from the US and European colleges without leaving the country. How will this move shake up the Indian higher education space? And is India ready to welcome foreign universities? 

Some teachers’ associations too have voiced concerns over the UGC’s move. They fear that it will turn education institutions into commercial spaces. Now it is up to the government to address all these concerns before it comes out with the final set of regulations. Meanwhile, there is another pressing issue which needs the government’s attention: the inadvertent import of plastic waste in India. A recent Bloomberg report revealed that UP’s Muzaffarnagar has become the dumping ground for plastic waste emanating in the US and several other western countries. Despite regulations against waste imports, how is India still on the receiving end of the world’s waste? 

 
Moving on, a weakening dollar, rising yields, recessionary fears, and less hawkish stance by the US Federal Reserve have triggered gold near all-time high levels. So far this year, the yellow metal has already surged 2% to Rs 56,100-levels, while domestic equity markets reflected negative returns, during the same period. So, will gold continue to glitter throughout the year and outshine other asset classes? 

This year, the worldwide end-user spending on public cloud services is likely to cross 591.8 billion dollars. As the world is increasingly turning digital, the dependence on the cloud for storing data is increasing. In this episod of the podcast, we tell what cloud computing is all about and more.