‘Rythanna Kit’, which literally means farmers kit, developed by N Swetha, V Laharika and G Chandana, second year electronics and communication engineering degree students from the Government Polytechnic College for Women in Warangal, won the prize for the Best Design Thinking Innovation in the Youth for Social Impact (YFSI) program on Wednesday.

The YFSI program is an initiative of Telangana State Innovation Cell, in collaboration with Telangana Department of Higher Education, UNICEF India, Inqui-Lab Foundation, Y-Hub and Yuwaah.

The trio designed a bag-like blanket made of high-quality tarp with zippers and mesh at regular intervals to emerge winners surpassing more than 11,800 students from 490 colleges across the state. Since these covers are to be used season after season, they come with an organic rat spray in addition to gloves for farmers and rubber bands to cover the sharp edges of an agricultural shovel. They also provided tarp strips to repair the bag, in case there was any damage.

“Our bags are 18 feet by 24 feet, which is enough for 25 to 30 quintals of grain or crop on one acre. They can be rolled up and packed like a suitcase. The lifespan we provide is five years,” says Laharika, from Nalgonda district.

The trio designed a bag-like blanket made of high-quality tarp with zippers and mesh at regular intervals to emerge winners surpassing more than 11,800 students from 490 colleges across the state. (Express Photo: Rahul V Pisharody)

The girls received mentoring support of Rs 1.5 lakh. They now wish to submit their proposal to the government for a wider application of their “kit” for the benefit of all farmers.

“We are daughters of farmers. We saw our fathers worrying about the unseasonable rains and the destruction of piles of grain,” says Swetha, from Rajanna Sircilla district, dedicating “Rythanna Kit” to his father N Raji Reddy.

“Farmers use tarps to cover their grain and protect it from moisture and rain. I saw my father suffer losses due to delays in paddy supply. As a family, we went through a tough time and we thought it was a good way to give back to the family of suffering farmers like us,” quips Laharika, who adds that the kit offers a complete and cost-effective solution.

The students surveyed the villages of Yellapur, Bavupet and Kaniparthi and interacted with over 100 farmers and heard their concerns.

Chandana says that sometimes the whole piles of paddy grains were soaked by heavy rains accompanied by wind, even though they were covered with leaves by placing stones in the corners. Sometimes birds sting on them and make holes in the covers or the sharp-edged agricultural shovels used by the farmers also damage the cover, she adds.

Asma Bushra, the college’s faculty representative, says the team didn’t compromise on quality when designing the product. “It had to be profitable and advantageous. Otherwise, why would farmers use it? ” she says.

A prototype of “Rythanna Kit” is currently being used by a farmer in Warangal district. “We could provide it for Rs 2,500. If he had bought a regular tarpaulin or a plastic sheet of the same size in the market, he would have spent Rs 2,800. But our product has a much longer lifespan” , says Chandana.

Raja Mettu, an entrepreneur and mentor to the YFSI team, explains that the modified tarpaulin bag was tested against conventional methods in terms of weight and moisture content of the grain, before and after drying. “This product is best suited even in rainy conditions because it is designed in such a way that water runs off and does not penetrate through the mesh provided for ventilation,” he notes.

“We would like to do further tests on a larger scale and finalize the product for the market. We will seek government support for wider application,” adds Mettu.

Google’s biggest apps already feature the main elements of Material You, but other aspects are now making their way, with Docs, Sheets and Slides using the new toggle design.

The Material 3 switch is bigger and even more of a pill than before because the whole container is shaped that way. According to Google:

• M2: Switches have a circular thumb that extends beyond the edge of the track.
• M3: Switches have a taller and wider track, new color mappings, and the ability to hold an icon in the Switch’s thumb.

Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides use the switch directly in the editor overflow menu for print layout, suggested edits, offline availability, and star. It does not take advantage of the optional icon (checkmark) in the circle, which increases in size from disabled to enabled.

Compared to the toggle in System Settings on Android 12/13, it’s now just as wide and more compact.

• Accessibility: the visual presentation is more accessible
• Color: new color mappings address non-text contrast requirements in addition to dynamic color compatibility
• Icons: Ability to have optional icon in switch thumb
• Layout: the track is higher and wider

Since it’s overflowing, you don’t fully appreciate the animation since the menu quickly disappears after a selection has been made. This change is not live anywhere else in the app, such as Settings.

The hardware you switch is deployed with Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides version 1.22.442.03.90. The Google application, as part of its hardware, you redesignwill use the new item in the settings.

Learn more about the hardware You:

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Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more info:

When Wontaek Lee started working in the maintenance department of Doosan Energy in South Korea fresh out of high school, he quickly became aware of a problem that had plagued his colleagues for years.

“We had requests for many different materials, parts and components,” said Lee, an entry-level worker, via a translator. “When we had an equipment failure, we had to go back and forth to determine if parts were available. We had to run to the office and check the stock on the internet, which took a lot of time and effort.

Indeed, Doosan’s sprawling production plant in Changwon, where the company manufactures energy solutions for thermal power, nuclear power and renewable energy, required employees to take a nearly 20-minute trip just to determine if stock was available. Additionally, employees could only make purchase requests from their own computers. These were decidedly analogous steps for a company focused on upgrading its technology.

“Over the past four years, Doosan has been pushing for digitalization across the organization,” said Heemoon Yang, Doosan General Manager. “With the adoption of Microsoft 365, we are moving in this direction, to transform our culture and the way we work with a focus on communication, sharing and collaboration.”

Lee figured there had to be a better way to solve his team’s inventory issues and help speed up the repair process. But he had no computer background or professional development experience, having joined Doosan directly after graduating from high school.

Walk in Microsoft Power Apps. The low-code app development platform helps people with little or no coding experience become “citizen developers”, empowering them to build apps that improve productivity or business processes. This includes applications for review donations from nonprofit donations, manage travel and ensure compliance with safety Where reduce overtime required to maintain wind turbines.

“As we think about the future of software creation, it’s clear that innovation and creating great app experiences is everyone’s job in the organization,” said the CEO. Microsoft General Satya Nadella during his Microsoft Ignite. Scheduled Speech last month. “It just can’t be data scientists or professional developers. It’s about empowering everyone. »

Lee discovered Power Apps and began to study the various features offered. His goal was to link inventory data found in excel sheets within the maintenance group to a newly created application that would present availability in a visual, yet readable way. Lee also turned to online videos and found a community of Power Apps users who helped guide him through the process.

In May 2020, Lee launched the prototype of the Search Stock app, much to the surprise of his colleagues. “They were amazed that material information could be checked via mobile,” Lee recalls. “My team leader thought it was a great idea, but also gave me some tips to improve the app.”

The first version created by Lee could only perform a simple inventory check, without any specification of the location of the necessary inventory. The final version added more detail and allowed users to monitor inventory in real time and order needed materials through the app. The 80-person team that Lee belongs to has access to the app, with the ability to scale up to 200 users.

The results have been impressive. The unit reported better workflow because employees can check information during maintenance work without having to make calls or travel between plants. This has led to reduced plant downtime and higher levels of efficiency in production work and repairs.

“We saw a drastic decrease in downtime,” Yang said. “There were a lot of pain points before. Time was wasted trying to identify availability. After the mobile app, there was more value spent on work and less spent on commuting. There have been many positive effects. »

Yang added that Doosan continues to deliver Power Platform trainings to empower employees to feel more connected to the organization and solve the problems they face on a daily basis. “People in the field know the pain points most accurately, and hopefully they are able to develop applications with those solutions in mind,” he said.

For Lee, seeing his work come to life and make a difference at Doosan is a source of pride. More importantly, he hopes it will serve as an inspiration to other employees who have something to offer but may feel like they aren’t qualified to do so.

“What I did was a simple act, but watching it other people in other departments asked for my help,” Lee said. “They wanted to create their own version that they could use in their own organization. Three people contacted me to create their own mobile application. I am happy to see that employees like me can contribute to the organization even without computer training .

Top image: Wontaek Lee, who works in the maintenance department at Doosan Enerbility, used Power Apps to develop an app that made finding inventory faster and more efficient. Photo by Jean Chung for Microsoft.

With an uncertain economic outlook, now is the time for advertisers to ensure their technology stack includes the right tools and automations to save money in the long run.

Google Ads scripts should be part of everyone’s toolbox, especially since many scripts are available for free.

In addition to many free scripts on top lists like this one and this onehere is a brand new script you can try.

I wrote this with my team to give advertisers a new way to control ad spend on the Display Network.

Ways to Save Money on Google Ads

Advertisers are always looking for an edge over their competitors, and a good way to level the playing field is to spend less for the same results. This means finding and eliminating unnecessary ad spend.

Common ways to eliminate unnecessary spending are to add negative keywords, restrict match types, and add negative placements.

Here’s how to do it manually for each of these techniques:

• To add negative keywords – Generate ideas by browsing your search term reports for ideas.
• Restrict match types – If you’re not using automatic bidding, be careful with your keywords and rely more on exact matches and exact phrases than broad matches.
• Add locations to exclude – See automatic placement reports to find non-converting placements eating into your budget.

Finding placement exclusions for Google Ads

The web is growing rapidly, which means there are more places every day your ads can appear when you participate in the Google Display Network (GDN).

There are more than 36,000 applications added to the Apple App Store every month, and there are more than 250,000 new websites started every day. While not all of them are joining the Google Display Network, with this level of growth it’s hard to keep track of placement exclusions.

Unless you want to play a constant game of molesting and manually review new locations as they are created, you need to identify the patterns that correlate with poor performance and use technology to help weed out the traffic from these types of locations.

Google offers several ways to do this proactively prevent GDN ads from appearing in places you don’t like.

Exclusions can be based on:

• Sensitive topics – such as pages about tragedies, conflicts or sensational news.
• Digital Content Labels – similar to movie ratings, but for sites.
• Types of video content – such as live streams or embedded videos outside of YouTube.

The script shared in this article provides another way to exclude locations.

While it cannot proactively prevent all impressions, it can add a negative location as soon as a new location is detected in the automated location report.

Location reports

The script analyzes the details of all locations in the Detailed Locations report.

This is the query you can use with GAQLthe Google Ads query language, to search for placements:

SELECT detail_placement_view.display_name, detail_placement_view.placement, detail_placement_view.placement_type, detail_placement_view.resource_name, detail_placement_view.target_url, detail_placement_view.group_placement_target_url FROM detail_placement_view

The data might look like this when you export it to a Google Spreadsheet:

Note that the placement on line 12 in the screenshot uses the Arabic script for the video name.

That’s what this script will look for and add as a negative location.

If your language uses a non-Latin script, you simply need to change the settings and allow your ad to show for a placement like line 12 and exclude all others that use the Latin character set.

Language targeting on the Google Display Network

You might be wondering why advertisers wouldn’t just use language targeting to prevent their ads from showing alongside content that uses a different script in their language.

The problem is that when you’re targeting a language, it’s not a very strict criteria. A user will match the targeted language as long as they have recently interacted with an app or website in that language.

This doesn’t mean they have to view a site or video in that language when your ad appears.

google says:

“On the Google Display Network, Google Ads may detect and examine the language of pages or apps someone is viewing or has recently viewed to determine which ads to display.”

So, if a user only reads a few English web pages with Latin script, but spends most of their time reading sites in Thai script, they may still see ads targeting English.

This script fixes this problem by making the targeting stricter.

This gives advertisers additional control, and is generally a welcome thing in an age of ever-increasing ad engine automation, a subject I wrote an entire book on this year.

Targeting Unicode characters with a Google Ads script

Similar to language targeting, you can use ad scripts to detect when an ad is showing on a placement with a title using a different Unicode character set and block that placement from showing your ad again.

Here is what the script does.

It detects when your ad is shown with a video, app, or website that has content in a different character set than you want.

The script then excludes locations whose names are not in the desired character set.

For example, a placement with the title ‘انشاء حساب جوجل ادوورد مجانا للمبتدئين وطريقة ربطة مع القناة Google Adwords | كنز الربح من اليوتيوب’ uses the Arabic script rather than the Latin character set and can be defined as negative placement.

Use this technique with caution, however.

There is nothing wrong with showing your ad to users whose language is in a different script. For example, they may see your ad because they accessed your remarketing list and are, in fact, a very good lead.

So how does this ad script find placements using non-Latin characters?

It is based on identifying Unicode character sets, which are a way for computers to render the different characters associated with different alphabets.

I’m used to the az alphabet used in English as well as my native language Dutch, and it’s called the Latin alphabet. But many languages ​​use entirely different characters, like Hebrew, Thai, Japanese (hiragana), etc.

Unicode is how computers encode these different characters.

In Google Ads scripts, which are closely related to JavaScript, we can use regex functionality to detect which Unicode character set a character corresponds to.

The scenario

Download the scenario.

Copy and paste all the text from the code on the link into a new script in Google Ads, where you first delete all the sample code that the new script loaded with.

Here is a video that explains how to use the script.

Script Parameters

After copying and pasting the script into an individual Google Ads account, tell it which Unicode character sets you want your ads to serve, for example for Latin.

Then give a name to the shared location exclusion list that the script should use for new exclude locations it discovers.

After previewing the script, you will see that a new shared exclusion list is created.

If there are ad placements whose titles use an unauthorized Unicode character set, these will be added as negative placements to the newly created shared exclusion list.

Conclusion

Two things a lot of advertisers love: saving money and taking back control of automated systems.

Scripts like the one in this article help you do both.

If you have a script idea that could help many advertisers, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

This script was born because someone asked me for help with their idea.

More resources:

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Feature image: Dean Drobot/Shutterstock

Earlier this year in Khmelnytskyi, western Ukraine, Olha Abakumova, an opera singer, and her husband, Ihor, a tuba player, put their then 7-year-old daughter Zlata on a pile of blankets in the tub for sleeping. If a missile were to strike, the bathroom seemed to be the safest place in their ninth-floor apartment.

The Khmelnytskyi Philharmonic Orchestra, where they both worked, first closed after the Russian invasion. A month later it reopened and the orchestra continued to give concerts, raising funds for the war effort.

Olha and Ihor were determined to stay in Ukraine even as many of their neighbors fled. They believed the war would end quickly. But one starry, particularly quiet night in March, they heard a strange whistle. They soon learned that Russia had attacked the nearby city of Lviv, where Olha made his debut at the Lviv State Opera nearly a decade ago. It was then that they decided to leave.

Today, Olha and her daughter live in a leafy Boston suburb with Olha’s sister, Liliia Kachura, and her family. Liliia moved to the United States eight years ago and now lives in Sudbury, Mass., with her Ukrainian-born husband, Sasha Verbitsky, and their two young sons.

At the end of April, President Biden announced the United for Ukraine Program, which allows US citizens to sponsor Ukrainians to come to the US When Verbitsky heard about it, he immediately called Olha, encouraging her to apply. Males of military age still have to stay in the country, so Ihor would stay in Ukraine. Within weeks, Olha’s candidacy was approved. In May, mother and daughter took a 14-hour bus trip from Khmelnytskyi to Warsaw.

Olha and Zlata were carrying a small suitcase. They put toiletries, clothes and shoes in it. They also wore a few items of sentimental value: Olha’s mother’s 50-year-old Vyshyvanka, a traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirt; Zlata’s favorite stuffed animal, a turtle; and – most important for Olha – as many partitions as Olha could fit.

“I have a lot of different Ukrainian and Russian music, but when I fled, I only took Ukrainian tunes,” says Olha. “Ukrainian works are very important to me. They connect me to my homeland, my culture and my roots.”

When mother and daughter arrived at Logan Airport in Boston, Verbitsky was there to greet them and take them home. Soon after, Olha found a free piano advertised on Facebook. Verbitsky and Kachura arranged to get the piano for Olha’s birthday. It is now in the children’s playroom, where she practices and sings with her scores from Ukraine.

“When I sing, I see images in front of my eyes,” says Olha. “Words and music go through me and bring me back to Ukraine.”

Some lines, like the last of the song “My Ukraine”, make her cry.

You have crossed the thorns to reach the dreamed stars.

You have sown goodness in souls, like seeds in the ground.

Last August, hundreds of Ukrainians gathered at a Boston cemetery to celebrate their Independence Day. Olha came dressed in a mint-colored Vyshyvanka. When she sang the Ukrainian national anthem, people stopped what they were doing and stood at attention.

His melodic voice cut through the cemetery, past a jungle gymnasium filled with playing children, through the tents where vendors were selling souvenirs and Ukrainian t-shirts. People who had filled their plates with homemade cabbage rolls, pierogis and sausages stopped to listen.

In August, Zlata celebrated her birthday in the United States with her mother, aunt, uncle and cousins. But her father, Ihor, could only congratulate his daughter via video chat from Khmelnytskyi.

Olha is worried about her family still in Ukraine, some of whom are fighting on the front line, and dreams of reunion.

“I hope the war will end soon,” she said. “I think so, but at what cost?”

Jodi Hilton is a Boston-area photojournalist. Her work focuses on migration and minorities. She contributes to many newspapers and magazines, including the National Public Radio website.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To learn more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Get instant legal updates on mobile – Download the Law Trend app now

Recently, the Supreme Court ruled that a rape victim statement under Section 164 of the CCP should not be disclosed to anyone, including the accused, until the indictment is filed.

The bench of Chief Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice Bela M. Trivedi deals with the motion for contempt aims to bring to light the conduct of the alleged critics who deliberately violated the mandatory instructions issued by the Court.

In this case, the instructions which are highlighted are those which were issued in the decision rendered in State of Karnataka by Nonavinakere Police against Shivanna aka Tarkari Shivanna.

On a similar question, the question was again dealt with by this Court in A v. State of Uttar Pradesh and another in which, after referring to the decision of this Court in Shivanna alias Tarkari Shivanna (supra), it was observed thus:

“19. Thus, simply because the indictment was filed at the time the High Court made the order [Chinmayanand v. State of U.P., 2019 SCC OnLine All 6594] in this case, did not entitle Defendant 2 to a copy of the statement under Article 164 CrPC.

21. The right to receive a copy of such a statement will only exist after knowledge and at the stage envisaged by articles 207 and 208 CrPC and not before. Respondent 2’s application was therefore rightly dismissed by the Extra Sessions Judge and the order so made called for no interference from the High Court. »

It was alleged by the petitioner for contempt that in violation of the instructions issued by the Court in the above-mentioned decisions, a copy of the statement of the petitioner’s daughter registered under article 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, was requested and provided to the accused. in the matter.

The Federal Reserve continued to see the size of its securities portfolio shrink.

As of October 29, 2022, the Federal Reserve’s holdings of securities have decreased by $232.5 billion compared to March 16, 2022, when the Fed launched its current quantitative measures program. contraction.

Reserve balances with Federal Reserve banks have fallen by $785.3 billion since March 16.

Most of the decline in reserve balances stems from the increase in reverse repurchase agreements. Reverse repurchase agreements have fallen by $624.8 billion since March 16.

Reverse repurchase agreements are transactions in which the Federal Reserve sells securities under an agreement to repurchase the securities at the end of the term of the agreement, which can be overnight, day, two days or more.

I write that reverse repurchase agreements have decreased by $624.8 billion since March 16, 2022.

This number is obtained by taking the end-of-day balance of reverse repurchase agreements from the Fed’s balance sheet line, found in the Federal Reserve’s H.4.1 release titled “Factors Affecting Reserve Balances of Depository Institutions and Condition” . Federal Reserve Bank Statement.” The first item in the release is titled “Factors Affecting Reserve Balances of Depository Institutions.” This release presents the balance sheet of the Federal Reserve.

As of the close of business on March 16, 2022, the Federal Reserve reported that the end-of-day balance of reverse repurchase agreements on the Fed’s balance sheet was $1.864.6 billion.

As of the close of business on October 29, 2022, the reported balance for reverse repurchase agreements was $2,489.4 billion. Taking the difference between these two balances, we get the $624.8 shown above.

Regardless of the maturity of the repurchase agreements, the total carried on the balance sheet is the amount that balances the balance sheet at the close of business on Wednesday evening. It is a real number.

Fed Policy Stance

The Federal Reserve is trying to bring real inflation back to its policy target of 2.0%.

The Federal Reserve tries to achieve this result by raising its key interest rate and reducing the amount of securities the Fed carries on its balance sheet.

Prior to March 16, the Fed’s key interest rate, the effective federal funds rate was 0.08%.

There have been five increases in the effective federal funds rate since the March 16 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.

There is another meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee next Tuesday and Wednesday, November 1 and 2, and the FOMC is expected to raise the effective federal funds rate by another 75 basis points.

There will be another FOMC meeting this year in December and the FOMC is expected to raise its key interest rate by at least another 50 basis points.

To achieve and sustain these increases in its key interest rate, the Fed is reducing the amount of liquidity that exists in the banking system.

This is why the Federal Reserve allows securities to mature from its portfolio of securities bought in a hurry.

As mentioned above, since March 16, $232.5 billion of securities have left the Fed’s balance sheet.

As mentioned above, reverse repurchase agreements represent sales of securities by the Federal Reserve. But, the fact that the sale is tied to a repurchase of the securities means that the reverse repurchase agreements are a liability of the Fed, and the securities sold by the Fed do not leave the securities portfolios.

However, this liability represents a reduction in the amount of securities that are counted as an outright purchased security, an asset, on the Fed’s balance sheet.

The use of reverse repurchase agreements helps the Fed manage liquidity in the commercial banking system.

In other words, if there are not enough securities leaving the Fed’s securities portfolio, the Fed can manage the amount of reverse repurchase agreements on its balance sheet to control the amount of cash that is in the system. bank and can support the level of the federal workforce The funds rate is now controlled by the Federal Reserve.

Note how these reserve balances with the Federal Reserve Banks have steadily declined with the decline in the effective federal funds rate.

But the Federal Reserve wants to continue to keep the amount of securities on its balance sheet down.

Currently, the Fed is using the approach called “quantitative tightening”.

Quantitative tightening occurs when the Fed steadily reduces the size of its balance sheet on a regular basis. When the Fed initially communicated the parameters for quantitative tightening, it signaled that it wanted to remove up to $95.0 billion of securities from its portfolio each month and that it wanted to continue doing so through 2024.

Currently, the Fed is nowhere near that total. But, he is reducing the size of his wallet every month.

This “quantitative tightening” is reminiscent of the policies previously followed by Fed Chairs Ben Bernanke and Jerome Powell.

Mr. Bernanke, during his tenure at the Fed, oversaw three rounds of quantitative easing as the Fed injected funds into the banking system to support rising stock prices and rising consumer spending.

Mr. Bernanke has had great success.

Mr. Powell, in the spring of 2020, in order to combat the threat of the collapse of the American financial and economic system, oversaw the creation of another quantitative easing program, this time with the purchase by the Fed of 120 billion dollars worth of securities for his portfolio for a few months. 18 months.

Mr. Powell avoided a collapse of the American financial system or the American economy.

Thus, the quantitative tightening program is in line with what the Fed has been doing for a decade, before 2020.

Two questions

There are, however, two questions that remain unanswered.

First, how far will the Federal Reserve take interest rates?

Second, how much cash is the Federal Reserve going to take out of the banking system.

If the Federal Reserve raises its key rate by 75 basis points next week and by 50 basis points at the December FOMC meeting, the effective federal funds rate will rise to 4.33%.

Some analysts have said they believe the Fed will raise the key interest rate above 5.00%.

Many market participants believe that the 5.00% level is a bit high.

As for the shrinking Fed balance sheet, the Fed’s holdings of securities now total $8.3 trillion.

Earlier Fed statements on the reduction of the Fed securities portfolio indicated that the Fed hopes to reduce the portfolio to approximately $6.0 trillion.

It would be quite a movement.

But would that be enough?

And what about reducing the amount of reverse repurchase agreements on the balance sheet?

Commercial banks now have $2.8 trillion in cash on their balance sheets. As can be seen in the attached table, this amount of “cash” has been accumulated over several years.

But (and this is the reason for the extended time chart) banks have not always been such money hoarders. This “hoarding” has only happened in recent years.

However, the picture that is shown indicates that the commercial banking sector has lots and lots of liquidity.

Thus, the Fed’s efforts to reduce liquidity in the banking system may require more action from the Fed than currently expected.

Much remains to be done to straighten out the commercial banking system.

The European Central Bank is set to make another giant interest rate hike on Thursday to rein in record inflation, shrugging its shoulders political pressure tread more carefully as the Eurozone succumbs to recession.

ECB President Christine Lagarde could also offer news on plans to unwind the central bank’s balance sheet, which swelled to 8.8 trillion euros from 2 trillion euros in 2010 as the ECB battled successive crises.

“The European Central Bank is likely to make another major interest rate move of 75 basis points,” said DWS asset management economist Ulrike Kastens. “Above all, concerns about high inflation rates that will also accompany us in 2023 and the risk of inflation expectations becoming unanchored are likely to prompt the ECB to take this bold step.”

Since the September monetary policy meeting, when the ECB raised rates by 75 basis points, headline inflation has been stronger than expected for hit a record 9.9%. At the same time, there were charges panels inflation expectations were rising, increasing the risks of a wage-price spiral.

Inflation expectations exceeding the ECB’s 2% target will be the strongest argument for aggressive tightening, even among political doves.

“We will also have to watch out for a possible unanchoring of medium and long-term inflation expectations above 2%”, said Governor of the Spanish Central Bank Pablo Hernández de Cos last month. “In the coming months, we will remain extremely vigilant on these indicators.”

Political pressure

Investors and economists are currently betting on a second move of 75 basis points – a move that will not be welcomed by some governments who have warned the ECB against measures that could further weaken growth.

French President Emmanuel Macron, for example, said he is “concerned” by “certain European monetary decision-makers explaining to us that we need to cut demand in Europe to better contain inflation”.

Lagarde is one of those political decision-makers who warned that rates may need to rise to levels where they are actively limiting growth.

The ECB’s assessment of the seriousness of this growth outlook will be the focus of this week’s meeting. Vice President Luis de Guindos suggested earlier this month that things deteriorated much more than expected in the central bank’s September forecast.

“What we considered our downside scenario in September is approaching the baseline scenario,” he said earlier this month.

While the central bank’s main baseline scenario in September predicted growth of 0.9% for next year, the pessimistic scenario sees activity contracting by almost 1%. Leading economic indicators too point towards a contraction in the last quarter of this year.

Investors hope to learn from Lagarde’s press conference on the future path of interest rates.

The current ECB deposit rate of 0.75% is expected to peak at 2.5% in March.

The speed and extent of future tightening will be the subject of heated debate in the Governing Council, with some members sharing concerns about the fight against inflation, which is mainly caused by rising food prices and energy.

Balance sheet policy

ECB policymakers will also begin discussing how to unwind its massive balance sheet to help reduce inflationary pressures, with members of the Governing Council including Frenchman François Villeroy de Galhau, signage the ECB will start by undermining the liquidity of the massive long-term loans that the ECB granted to banks during the crisis.

The ECB has lent more than €2 trillion to banks under so-called TLTRO loans on extremely favorable terms. The current structure of these operations implies that even if the banks do not use the funds to lend to the real economy, they can make a profit simply by guaranteeing them to the central bank. According to Barclays estimates, around €1.1 trillion is currently idle at the ECB, generating risk-free profits.

While it may be legally tricky to change the terms of loans, it is equally politically untenable for banks to extract such a windfall from public policy at a time when citizens are struggling to make ends meet. This is all the more the case since the current arrangement also implies an attack on the profitability of the central bank.

This means that national central banks, as shareholders of the ECB, will have less profit to pass on to governments that urgently need liquidity.

“We expect the ECB to address the issue of the TLTRO at the next meeting in October,” said Morgan Stanley economist Jens Eisenschmidt. “We see no reason to wait.” He said the move in October would give banks ample time to adjust their repayment plans in light of the new terms of the prepayment option due in December.

The ECB could also set the stage to reduce its bond holdings by around €5 trillion by changing the reinvestment guidance of its APP asset purchase program paving the way for a decision on APP reinvestments as early as December. , Eisenschmidt said.

This is when policymakers may come under more intense political fire, with some governments relying heavily on support from the ECB. Even the most hawkish policymakers signaled that the central bank would act very cautiously, starting by phasing out reinvestments of maturing bonds purchased under the APP asset purchase program in the spring of the year. next at the earliest.

By then, a harsh winter and recessionary forces may well have shifted the debate.

By JOSEPH WANGUI

A Kenyan lawyer has filed a motion for a court to summon Ugandan military general Muhoozi Kainerugaba for an alleged offense of treason in relation to remarks about a military invasion in Nairobi.

Mr. Apollo Mboya, former CEO of the Law Society of Kenya, in a petition filed at the Milimani Magistrate’s Court, Nairobi, also seeks an order directing the country’s Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and Inspector General of the Kenya Police to provide the court with an investigation report and, if applicable, an indictment in respect of the alleged offence.

If the DPP is unwilling or unable to charge and prosecute the neighboring country’s military leader within 14 days, Mr Mboya wants court clearance to bring a private prosecution against General Muhoozi for his recent Twitter remarks threatening to launch a military invasion to capture Nairobi.

“The inaction of the DPP and the Inspector General not only jeopardizes the national security of the Republic of Kenya, but is also contrary to the national values ​​of patriotism set out in Article 10 of the Constitution,” Mr. Mboya said.

The lawyer believes that General Muhoozi, who is also the Commander of the Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF) and son of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni, has committed an offense of treason based on the disputed tweets.

He argues that the alleged offense is a threat to the territorial integrity of Kenya.

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Offensive Tweets

General Muhoozi’s alleged offensive tweets were posted on October 3 and 18, 2022.

On October 3, 2022, via his official Twitter account, General Muhoozi tweeted: “It wouldn’t take me and my army 2 weeks to capture Nairobi. I’m glad our district members in Kenya have responded enthusiastically to my tweet. There are still 2 weeks left in Nairobi. After our army captures Nairobi, where should I live? Westlands? Riverside?”

I never had a problem with Afande Ruto. If I made a mistake somewhere, I ask him to forgive me as his younger brother. God bless East Africa! pic.twitter.com/5LuzVabLKz

— Muhoozi Kainerugaba (@mkainerugaba) October 13, 2022

On October 18, he further tweeted, “I hear journalists in Kenya asking my dad to ban me from Twitter? Is this some kind of joke? I’m an adult and NO ONE will ban me from anything !”

“Mr. Muhoozi, who is a senior military officer in neighboring Uganda, has committed treasonous offenses by threatening the national security, territorial integrity and sovereignty of Kenya after expressing his intention to launch a military invasion to seize Nairobi, the capital of the Republic of Kenya within two weeks,” Mr. Mboya states in his application, he wants the application certified as urgent.

The lawyer is also concerned that after the disputed tweets, President Museveni promoted General Muhoozi to full military status.

“The Head of State of the Republic of Uganda, who is also the Commander of the Uganda People’s Defense Force, has rewarded Lt. Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba by promoting him to the rank of full General of the UPDF following his threats to invade Kenya, thereby empowering General Muhoozi Kainerugaba,” the lawyer says.

Urging the court to grant his request, Mr Mboya said Section 45 of Kenya’s Penal Code provides that a person cannot be tried for treason unless charges are brought within two years of the commission. of the offence.

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