The world of social trading apps; Edtech platform for design

Hello,

Foreign portfolio investors pumped Rs 47,148 crore into Indian equities in June, the highest inflow in 10 months, enthused by the country's steadily improving macroeconomic fundamentals.

In other news, Twitter said it suspended more than 11 lakh accounts in India between 26 April and 25 May, mostly for child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity.

Twitter is also limiting how many tweets per day various users can read, owner Elon Musk said in a post on the platform. This is reportedly to discourage "extreme levels" of data scraping and system manipulation. 

ICYMI: Aspartame, used in Coca-Cola diet sodas and other food products, will be listed in July as "possibly carcinogenic to humans" for the first time by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the World Health Organisation's cancer research arm, Reuters recently reported. 

Many of the 94 items on the inventory such as infection with HIV type 2 and working with asphalt are perhaps not surprising. The list, however, is also expected to include aloe vera extract as well as radiofrequency magnetic fields, which are emitted by many common electronic devices including mobile phones, as "possible human carcinogen". 

Oh, and June was a busy month for space exploration. Here are images from the month’s most spectacular missions. 

In today’s newsletter, we will talk about 

• The world of social trading apps 
• Mental health challenges in Tihar 
• An edtech platform for design

Here’s your trivia for today: A group of which large mammals is called a crash?

Fintech 

The world of social trading apps

Influencers offering financial advice are a mainstay on several social media platforms. A new breed of social trading apps, however, is now outpacing these platforms as avenues to lure novice traders. YourStory takes a deep dive into understanding the pull of these platforms, as well as the risks.

Buy or sell:

• Popular social trading platforms include Trinkerr, FrontPage, InvestMates, OpiGo, StockEdge, and StockGro. 
• As per data, there are a mere 1,300-SEBI registered investment advisers in India for an estimated trading population of about eight million. 
• SEBI has cautioned investors of potentially fraudulent activities carried out through SMS, websites, and social media, often advising users on dealing with only its registered intermediaries. 

Rehabilitation

Mental health challenges in Tihar 

The Tihar Prison complex–considered South Asia’a largest jail– is spread over 400 acres and includes nine central prisons. For the past seven years, Dr Vivek Rustagi, the Head of the Department of Psychiatry at the institution, has worked towards the rehabilitation of the prisoners in Tihar and Mandoli.

Key takeaways:

• Rustagi says that the Indian Judicial System is non-punitive. The focus of the system is to reform, rehabilitate, and reintegrate the inmates.
• The process involves helping a person become mentally healthy. After this, the person is offered educational, vocational training and other such resources that they could use for their survival after their prison term. Lastly, they are helped in reintegration with society so they are not ostracised.
• Tihar and Mandoli complexes together have 12 posts for psychiatrists, 13 posts for clinical psychologists, and 17 posts for psychiatric social workers. Half of the posts for psychiatrists are vacant. 

Startups

An edtech platform for design 

Recognising the need to bring design students closer to experts, Samarth Bajaj, Aadesh Nahar, Vishal Bajaj, and Preetam Saikia founded an online learning platform, The Designer's Class (TDC), in 2020.  

In style:

• TDC has a roster of 18 celebrity designers, including Gauri Khan, Masaba, Rhea Kapoor, Abu Jani, and Sandeep Khosla, who have framed and taught courses on the platform.
• The platform operates on a hybrid model, with the master's and celebrity classes pre-recorded, and live classes taught by the faculty.
• Currently, TDC has 17,000 active users and generated around Rs 3.5 crore in revenue in FY22.

News & updates

• Hearing aids: Some AirPods will be gaining a new hearing health feature, supported by iOS 17, that can check potential hearing issues and may be able to determine a user’s body temperature via the ear canal, according to Bloomberg. But it is unlikely that we will see the new AirPods anytime soon. 
• Goodbye: The world’s oldest national newspaper has printed its last daily edition almost 320 years after it began. Wiener Zeitung, a Vienna-based daily newspaper, will no longer print daily editions after a recent law change meant it had ceased to be profitable as a print product.
• Dark energy: A European-built orbital satellite was launched into space on Saturday from Florida on a mission to shed new light on dark energy and dark matter, the mysterious cosmic forces scientists say account for 95% of the known universe.

What you should watch out for

• SGX Nifty will be re-branded as GIFT NIFTY
• The 136th edition of the Wimbledon Championships 

A group of which large mammals is called a crash?

Answer: Rhinoceros

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