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The growing world remittances were $781 billion in 2021 and are expected to touch $794 billion in 2022. This growth rate was 10.2% in 2021, which was the highest since 2010.  While in 2022, its growth rate was of 4.9%. Out of the $794 billion, $626 billion went to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).  Remittances are larger source of external finance for LMICs in 2022, as compared to foreign direct investment (FDI), official development assistance (ODA), and portfolio investment flows. The increase in migration to the Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD)countries which went up by 22% in 2021.  The stimulus packages to bolster the economies in the United States (US) and the European Union during the pandemic, boosted the remittances.   While the rising inflation & the hardening of the monetary stance in advanced economies are likely to adversely affect the flow of remittances in the coming years. The slump in the growth of remi...

The Harappans, script is still a mystery, because it is still undeciphered. So far the other forgotten scripts like those of ancient Egypt could be deciphered because scholars found some inscriptions written in the forgotten script followed by some of its forms in a known script.  We have not discovered any bilingual inscription in Harappa so far. Moreover, the inscriptions discovered so far are short, usually engraved on seals.  But they used ideograms and wrote from right to left. However, scholars are still struggling to unveil the mystery of the script.  The script did not change all through the life of the Harappan Civilization. All the other ancient scripts have showed distinct changes over a period of time. This indicates that the Harappan script was not in common use.  Perhaps a very small section of privileged scribes had a monopoly over the written word. About what they learnt & how they learnt, we have no answers. Whether they had some kind of school f...

The climate change & Biodiversity loss are related to each other very strongly.  The only composite solution will only be sustainable one. As per the minutes of meetings in Paris Conference, biodiversity conservation should be prioritize. The biodiversity loss observed over the years is rapid, irreversible, and is caused by climate change. The Living Planet Report 2022, a publication of the World Wide Fund for Nature, based on the Living Planet Index (LPI), tracks the changes in the wild species population across the globe. It exhibits 32,000 populations of the 5,230 species across the world & observed that  the population of wild vertebrates is shrinking in tropical regions. The period, from 1970 to 2018, the monitored wildlife mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and fish populations declined by 69%; freshwater populations have declined by 83%; cycads (an ancient group of seed plants) are the most threatened species; and corals are declining the fastest, followed by...