News in Short

• Gold demand in India hit a 25-year low at 446.4 tonnes in 2020, compared with 690.4 tonnes in 2019 due to the COVID-19 induced lockdown and on account of record high prices.
• Total jewellery demand in India for 2020 was down by 42% at 315.9 tonnes as compared with 544.6 tonnes in 2019. The value of jewellery was ?1,33,260 crore, down by 22% from ?1,71,790 crore in 2019.
• Total investment demand for the calendar year was down by 11% at 130.4 tonnes in comparison with 145.8 tonnes in the previous year.

• Authorities in Bangladesh have sent a third group of Rohingya refugees to a newly developed island in the Bay of Bengal despite calls by human rights groups for a halt to the process.
• The government insists the relocation plan is meant to offer better living conditions while attempts to repatriate more than 1 million refugees to Myanmar would continue.
• Authorities said the refugees were being treated well on the island and they would have the option of generating income by rearing cattle or poultry and could also engage in making handicrafts.
• The island surfaced only 20 years ago and was not previously inhabited. It was regularly submerged by monsoon rains but now has flood protection embankments, houses, hospitals, and mosques built by the Bangladesh navy.

• The government has approved closure of loss-making state-owned firm Scooters India Limited and shutting down the operations of its units.
• The Scooters India brand name shall be sold separately as the company holds famous brands such as Lambretta, Vijai Super, Vikram, and Lambro. The company produces several types of three-wheelers under the Vikram brand.
• The process of winding up also involves delisting of its shares from the stock exchange. The Centre has made several efforts in the past to find buyers for Scooters India and nurse the ailing firm back to health, but they have not yielded results.
• In 2018, the government had invited expression of interest (EoI) to sell its entire stake with transfer of management control in Scooters India.
• Scooters India was incorporated in 1972. It was engaged in designing, developing, manufacturing, and marketing a broad spectrum of conventional and non-conventional fuel driven three-wheelers.

• People who recover from COVID-19 are protected against the novel coronavirus for at least six months, according to a study which says the immune system evolves long after the infection and may block even mutant forms of the virus.
• The research noted that antibodies are produced by immune cells that keep evolving, apparently due to a continued exposure to remnants of the virus hidden in the gut tissue.
• They suspect that when recovered patients next encounters the virus, the response would be both faster and more effective, preventing reinfection.
• While antibodies against the coronavirus linger in the blood plasma for several weeks or months, earlier studies have shown that their levels significantly drop with time.

• Popular Gujarati movie and theatre actor Arvind Joshi passed away in a Mumbai. He was 84.
• Arvind Joshi, a known face in the Gujarati theatre and film circuit, also starred in Hindi movies like Apmaan Ki Aag (1990), Sholay (1975), and Ittefaq (1969).
• Besides acting in Gujarati theatre and movies, Arvind Joshi was also a screenwriter and assistant director for several movies.