Latest news with #IFS
Time of India
11 hours ago
- Time of India
Foresters lacked intel to anticipate tiger deaths in MM Hills: Ex-Indian Forest Service officials
Bengaluru: The death of five tigers at Male Mahadeshwara (MM) Hills Wildlife Sanctuary in Chamarajanagar on Thursday — said to be the largest single-day tiger mortality in the state since the launch of Project Tiger in India — has raised several questions over the preparedness of the forest department in the management of the protected areas across Karnataka. Amid the mounting criticism over the deaths, former Indian Forest Service (IFS) officials have pointed out the failure of the forest intelligence in anticipating the incident, especially in a sensitive area like MM Hills that borders the neighbouring Tamil Nadu. Retired principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife) Braj Kishore Singh, who served in Kollegal division as DCF, attributed the deaths to a failure of intelligence. "While elephant poaching or electrocution was known in that area, the killing of tigers is strange and shocking. The death of the tigress and her cubs indicates that forest officials were neither active nor present on the ground," Singh said. You Can Also Check: Bengaluru AQI | Weather in Bengaluru | Bank Holidays in Bengaluru | Public Holidays in Bengaluru Lamenting that in any conflict, it is the tiger that pays the price, Singh said the presence of the tigress and her cubs was a testimony to good conservation, but the administration failed to safeguard it. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Livguard Lithium-X: The Future of Power Backup Livguard Buy Now Undo "Meenyam and Hoogyam are remote areas and connected to Tamil Nadu via a walkable mud road. The beat forest guards should have noticed the kill by the tigress and accordingly sensitised the surrounding villagers. The camera traps in the region may have revealed the presence of the tigress with her cubs as the animal may have been moving in the area for 3 to 4 days. But that was clearly missing at the ground level as a few miscreants resorted to killing tigers by feeding poison," Singh said. Yet another former PCCF, BJ Hosmath, who previously served as project director and field director of Bandipur-Nagarhole tiger reserves, acknowledged that the administration of tiger reserves requires dynamic leadership. "The officer and his team could have anticipated this event by relying on the department's intelligence. Even if you suspect the incident as the handiwork of local villagers, the anger could have been simmering for months. Why did the staff not notice it and report to the higher authorities for suitable action?" A few other officials revealed that the tigress killed the cattle on Tuesday evening and may have been revisiting the carcass with her cubs a day after. "The cattle carcass was seen within a few yards of the main road, and it is strange that the ground staffers failed to notice it and alert the higher authorities of the department," another retired official from the state forest service said.
Telegraph
16 hours ago
- Business
- Telegraph
The taxes Reeves could raise to pay for Labour's about-turns
Rachel Reeves faces another black hole in the public finances. This time she can blame her own MPs: the revolt by more than 120 Labour backbenchers has forced the Prime Minister to back down on his proposal to slow the growth in the benefits bill. Sir Keir Starmer's reforms were supposed to save £5bn per year. But now that he has performed another about-turn, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) estimates the scheme will only save £2bn, thus blowing a fresh £3bn hole in the Chancellor's numbers. 'These changes more than halve the saving of the package of reforms as a whole, making the Chancellor's already difficult budget-balancing act that much harder,' says Tom Waters, at the think tank. It comes weeks after the policy reversal on winter fuel payments for pensioners, which will cost more than £1bn. To make matters worse, the economy is slowing – in part because of Labour's record-breaking tax raids – which will undermine the tax revenues on which Reeves's plans relied. Ruth Gregory, at Capital Economics, estimates the combination of higher benefits spending and lower growth will cost the Chancellor £22bn compared to the Office for Budget Responsibility's forecasts at the Spring Statement. If MPs will not allow the Government even the most modest restraint on spending, and if the Chancellor will not again rewrite her own 'iron-clad' borrowing rules, that means more tax rises are on the way in the autumn. Here are the options Reeves will be looking at. Income tax The Government's biggest revenue-raiser, income tax, raked in £310bn last year – almost precisely matching the £313bn spent on benefits. Adding a penny to the basic and higher rates of income tax would bring in just over £10bn extra per year, according to HMRC estimates. That means at least 2p would need to be added to come close to repairing Reeves's Budget. If it were not for Labour's manifesto pledge not to raise the tax, this would be an obvious place for the Chancellor to turn. But the manifesto is hardly a meaningful constraint. The vaunted document also promised not to raise National Insurance contributions (NICs), but the Chancellor did just that in her first Budget. The Government argued that the manifesto promise only applied to the NICs paid directly by workers, not the much larger share paid by their employers. Income tax does not lend itself quite so easily to such a ruse, but the Chancellor could extend the Conservatives' long freeze on thresholds. A classic stealth tax, this method means that as workers receive pay rises they are pulled more quickly into higher tax brackets – even if inflation means the spending power of their pay packets is not actually growing. The freeze on thresholds, which is currently set to last until 2028, is already expected to bag the Chancellor nearly £50bn per year by the end of the decade. Extending it by another two years would bring in an extra £10bn per year, the IFS estimates. Given the sums involved and the fact that stealth raids do not affect workers in an obvious way, this is seen as a likely option. National Insurance The Chancellor is unlikely to whack businesses with another raid. She has promised hostile bosses that she will not pull the same stunt on National Insurance contributions again. Andrew Bailey, the Governor of the Bank of England, has also warned that last year's tax raid is now weighing on the economy, meaning increasing the rate again could be counterproductive. But that does not mean the tax, which is set to bring in £200bn this year, has to go untouched. One option is to raise the rate paid by workers. This would breach even the revised version of the manifesto pledge, but could be framed as reversing reckless Tory tax cuts – under Jeremy Hunt, Reeves's predecessor in No 11, the rate was chopped from 12pc to 10pc and then down to 8pc. Each of those two percentage point moves cost more than £10bn, so reversing the cuts could help Reeves considerably. Capital gains Increasing the rate of capital gains tax (CGT) is popular in Left-wing circles. Unfortunately, jacking up the tax paid on profits made from the sale of assets comes with a range of downsides, which can result in a higher tax rate in fact costing the Treasury revenue. A large share of CGT is paid by a very small number of people. If the higher rate means they simply decide not to sell their assets, then the tax take will plunge in short order. HMRC estimates that a one percentage point increase in the top rate ends up costing the Treasury £30m per year. A 5p increase costs £870m per year. A 10p jump loses a staggering £3.6bn per year for the public purse. As a result, increasing the rate of CGT seems unlikely. VAT Another option ruled out in the manifesto, this levy on a large share of the things people buy is on track to bring in £200bn per year by the end of the decade. Currently charged at a rate of 20pc, increasing VAT might not be the most popular measure when households are already reeling from a cost of living crisis. None the less, it could be a tempting option when a 1p increase brings in £9.6bn per year. Alternatively, the Chancellor could slap the tax on items that are currently exempt – as she did with private school fees this year – or those that attract the reduced rate of 5pc, such as energy bills. Fuel duty Reeves has maintained the accounting wheeze employed by successive Conservative chancellors: freeze fuel duty year after year but pencilling in extra revenues from future increases. About half of her headroom comes from the official assumption that the tax on petrol and diesel will rise in future – yet few expect she will actually jack up the cost of driving. The fuel duty escalator has been frozen for a decade and a half, making it politically difficult to unfreeze. Most economists believe it will be kept frozen. It would be a shock to voters, but Reeves may find it an attractive revenue-raiser: reintroducing inflation-linked increases in fuel duty would raise an estimated £5bn a year. Banks, shares and child benefits for high-earners It is not just the big taxes that are on the table. Angela Rayner, the Deputy Prime Minister, wrote to Reeves with a raft of proposed tax increases ahead of the Spring Statement. Suggestions included: a higher bank surcharge, raising up to £700m from lenders; scrapping inheritance tax relief on Aim-listed shares, for anywhere between £100m and £1bn; removing the dividend allowance to bag £325m, as well as raising the tax rate on dividends; and further freezing the threshold at which high earners pay the additional rate of income tax. Raising the tax on enveloped properties, which are largely owned by companies, could raise another £200m, while closing a commercial property stamp duty loophole could net £1bn. Reinstating a lifetime allowance on pensions contributions might gain close to £800m per year. Rayner also suggested clawing back more child benefit from higher-earning households, for £600m, and tightening migrants' access to benefits. Together those measures could increase the Treasury's haul by £4.6bn or more. That would be useful, but is barely enough to cover the cost of Starmer's latest about-turns, let alone cover the other costs. The scale of spending commitments mounting up means Reeves is facing unpalatable choices when it comes to the Budget.
The Sun
19 hours ago
- Business
- The Sun
Are the Universal Credit and PIP cuts going ahead? We explain how changes could affect you
LATE-NIGHT concessions were granted to Labour rebels on the flagship welfare reforms - giving relief to some benefits claimants. Ministers announced a slew of welfare reforms back in March aimed at getting more people off sickness benefits and into work. 1 Changes outlined included curbing access to the main disability benefit known as Pip - personal independence payment - and sickness-related universal credit. But hopes of Chancellor Rachel Reeves saving around £5 billion by the end of the decade have been dashed by 126-strong army of Labour MPs voicing their opposition. What are the Pip changes? Welfare Secretary Liz Kendall says ANYONE currently receiving Pip will keep their benefits. Only new claims kicking in from November NEXT year will fall under the new criteria under beefed-up eligibility requirements. The new measures would have seen 800,000 people lose out with an average loss of £4,500 every year. The changes would have seen a staggering 370,000 people totally lose the Pip pay-outs. What isn't changing to Pip? Welfare Secretary Liz Kendall says ANYONE currently receiving Pip will keep their benefits. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said the change will also indirectly boost around 50,000 carers who look after someone on Pip, ensuring they keep their carer's allowance of around £4,340 per year. What are the Universal Credit changes? More than 2 million people will see themselves protected from a loss of between £250 and £500 a year. Increases to UC will see a boost of £7 a week to £106 per week for new and existing claims from April 2026. What isn't changing to Universal Credit? The Cabinet Minister vowed that all those currently receiving the UC health element - and new claimants meeting the severe conditions criteria will see their incomes 'fully protected in real terms'. But Mikey Erhardt, from Disability Rights UK, accused the Government of 'playing politics with our lives', saying the vote next Tuesday must still be pulled. He said the changes will mean 'a benefits system where future generations of disabled people receive less support than disabled people today'. He added that the original decision 'prioritised balancing its books over improving the lives of disabled citizens'. Mr Erhardt added: 'Despite seemingly rowing back on some of the worst aspects of its plans, the Government is still attempting to slash billions of pounds from a system that doesn't provide enough support as it stands.' The MS Society said Ministers were simply 'kicking the can down the road and delaying an inevitable disaster'. They urged MPs 'not to be swayed by these last-ditch attempts to force through a harmful Bill with supposed concessions'. Food bank network Trussell welcomed the 'significant' concessions. But they said the proposals 'still present a bleak future for future claimants and still risk placing the Government's commitments to end the need for emergency food and tackle poverty in serious jeopardy'.
Telegraph
a day ago
- Business
- Telegraph
With this surrender to Leftist rebels, Starmer's days as PM are numbered
It is now clear that Keir Starmer is making major concessions to his belligerent MPs to save his political career. A series of compromises have drastically diluted his landmark welfare Bill. This is not just a personal defeat. Starmerism, the final line of defence between the far-Left and the levers of power, is on the brink of collapse. Rachel Reeves and her Treasury colleagues will conclude Britain has little choice but to continue pursuing mass migration and increasing taxation. Spending 5 per cent of GDP on defence will become hopelessly unrealistic; even 3 per cent will be out of reach. All this is aside from the moral gravity of the failure to break the cycle of benefits dependency, or the impact it will have on those who study, strive and work hard to provide a better life for their families. Spending on welfare has ballooned in recent years. One in 10 people of working age are now claiming a sickness or disability benefit. By the end of the decade the country could be spending as much on disability benefits as it currently does on transport, policing and social care put together. The pool of workers is shrinking, whilst spending rises inexorably. In the end, this country will go to the wall. Starmer's reforms didn't go far enough; the IFS estimates that the benefits bill would still rise by £8 billion by 2030. Yes, this row – the row that could derail Starmer's premiership – would not even come close to cutting the overall cost. A benefits surrender risks destroying the trust of the markets, triggering a Truss-style meltdown, not immediately but inevitably. Labour came into power on the promise of 'change'. When Reeves hiked taxes by £40 billion in a single fiscal event, she insisted she was 'fixing the foundations'. The Government has sought to distance itself from the 'fantasy' economics now being advanced by Reform UK. How can it reconcile this with a benefits climbdown, coming in the wake of all the other about-turns on other cuts? How can it claim to be taking 'tough' decisions for the 'greater good'? Labour's far-Left, fresh from derailing Starmer's reforms, will surely make the case for a shift towards socialist populism. If Labour cannot see off Nigel Farage through the successful pursuit of deep reform, then, according to some Labour MPs, the next best thing is to try and match his immigration populism with economic populism. Wealth taxes, pensions tax raids, second home levies – all will be on the table. A failure to push through benefit cuts will above all be a moral calamity. Britain is becoming a country that mollycoddles 'takers' whilst clobbering the 'makers'. Citizens who attempt to improve their lives are being dragged down, through excessive taxation, the neutering of private enterprise or the destruction of the private school system. We learnt this week that more than seven million people are now estimated to be higher rate taxpayers, a jump of more than two-fifths since just 2022-23. The permanently inactive are exalted as 'vulnerable' and 'deserving', a status that renders them untouchable. Serial welfare recipients are relentlessly given the benefit of the doubt, yet the self-employed and those with assets are treated by the system as potential tax dodgers. We should of course cushion the most vulnerable in our society. We should also make the distinction between the respectable working class and the dysfunctional underclass. On a recent trip to the North East, residents from one rough estate told me of the local children who aspire to become drug dealers and believe that their future is not determined by their own decisions but rather merely by 'luck'. Their parents are too proud to visit the estate's work support charity but are at ease tapping benefits from an impersonal bureaucracy. Those like Diane Abbott who preach that 'there is nothing moral about cutting benefits' should be made to conduct an in-depth tour of these places. They would see the destructive impact of uncontrolled welfarism on the integrity of families, the self-respect of adults, and the dreams of children. Starmer's failure was not inevitable. Labour could have made a solid centre-Left case for reform. It should be possible to cut benefits while also treating genuinely disabled people with greater humanity, not least by bringing back rigorous in-person assessments. It could have glanced at this week's British Social Attitudes Survey, which found that less than half (45 per cent) of people support more spending on benefits for disabled people who cannot work. Nearly a third now agree it is too easy to claim disability benefits. And there is rising evidence that benefits cuts can actually be a vote winner. After a brief softening of public opinion during the Covid lockdown, polling expert James Frayne has recently picked up on a hardening of attitudes to welfare and a growing perception that benefits do not reach the working class. Rather than hiding behind Old Left platitudes about the 'dignity of work', Starmer could have spoken bluntly about the phenomenon of people claiming benefits based on false beliefs and statements about their mental health. The Prime Minister's failure to articulate these truths only serves to embolden his opponents. As one told me: 'I've heard no minister explain why the budget of the United Kingdom should be balanced on the backs of disabled people. And if you can't make the argument maybe you're doing the wrong thing.'
Forbes
2 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
IFS Puts Hard Hats On ‘Industrial AI' Workforce
Engineer holding helmet on site Road construction For the development of modern transportation ... More systems, Technician worker hold hard hat safety first Product differentiation proliferates across all sectors. We segment our goods and services into different classes, the business world likes to differentiate across different industry verticals, then there is a basic clarification (in most markets) as to whether a commercial offering of any kind should be demarcated as either a business or a consumer product. In the world of artificial intelligence, we separate out product differentiation in a more applied way by virtue of what any individual piece of AI is supposed to do for us. There's reactive AI that responds to stimuli in as close to real-time as it can, predictive AI which (as it sounds) aims to create predictions based on pattern recognition from past events… and of course there is generative AI, which is quietly taking over a new role as a generator/creator in various roles. Forging Industrial AI While the cloud services provision sector is keen to differentiate between general-purpose clouds and industry-specific services (such as a marketing cloud for instance), the next iteration of AI reflects this trend could see it named after the environment that it works in, rather than the precise job or tasks it performs. That's if enterprise cloud services platform company IFS has its way; the company has set about attempting to coin the term 'industrial AI' as a homage to its enterprise resource management and field service management heritage, along with its essentially hands-on approach to working with mission-critical assets and processes. With ambitions to further its stance in this space, IFS has now acquired Silicon Valley-headquartered agentic AI specialist theLoops. IFS insists that its acquisition of theLoops marks a shift from enterprise software that tracks work, to building and deploying functional software that actually performs workplace jobs, tasks and wider workflows within the context of real-world operational enterprises. According to Mark Moffat, Chief Executive Officer, IFS, this is not a digital buddy, virtual assistant or some form of quirky workplace chatbot with a smart robotic process automation underbelly. This, he says, is an enterprise-grade agentic AI platform with security and governance, designed to deliver what he pledges to be 'radical productivity improvements and measurable return on investment' in applied industrial settings. With a promise to deliver what he calls 'real value capture' in working industrial environments, Moffat says that the addition of this newly acquired agentic AI firm will help create digital teammates who can perform real work functions across industries spanning manufacturing, energy, utilities, construction and engineering, as well as aerospace and defense. 'These industrial agentic AI 'workers' understand their business responsibilities from day one; they are agents that speak the industrial language appropriate to the industry they are located in. They can follow rules and operate securely in their workflows,' said Moffat. Semantic Environmental Awareness TheLoops acquisition will enable IFS to create and deliver multi-agent environments where autonomous AI agents are both composable and governed. They will be 'semantically aware of their operating environment' and so eminently suited to being applied in regulated, asset-intensive sectors. The industrial AI agents IFS now envisages (IFS would say enabling) will be able to participate in real enterprise workflows side-by-side with humans; adhere to customer-defined security, data access, and compliance standards; and outwardly collaborate with specialized agents across integrated domains. 'AI is disrupting our world, but nowhere is the potential impact more pronounced than in the Industrial setting. IFS's acquisition of theLoops is addressing a huge opportunity for asset-intensive and service-obsessed industries, where agentic decision making will enable organizations to rethink their digital workforce, so they can improve the way they serve their own customers. IFS is well-positioned to lead this shift in each of the industries it serves - bringing intelligent automation that's not just smart, but situationally aware and operationally impactful,' suggested Aly Pinder, research vice president for aftermarket services strategies, IDC Somya Kapoor, CEO of theLoops (who now retains her position inside of IFS) has spoken of what she thinks could be a new era of automation, where intelligent agents never rest - continuously scanning for improvements, making and executing critical streamline operations, increase capacity and free up skilled workers for higher-value tasks. According to Kapoor, this goes beyond traditional AI's pattern recognition and prediction to enable truly autonomous decision-making and execution. 'We're creating autonomous AI agents that understand industrial complexity. They identify required work, determine execution pathways and implement software services with rigorous standards for security, ethics and scale.. This isn't experimental; it's transformational,' said Kapoor. Industrial AI, Competitive Analysis IFS has championed the industrial AI tagline or slogan for a while now, but can the firm lay claim to any substantial degree of genuine leadership in this domain? Certainly, the company is structured not just as an ERP provider, but also as specialist in field service management, enterprise asset management and human capital management with manufacturing project management functions manifesting themselves across its platform toolset. That rather leads the firm not just to be a systems of record and systems of transaction company (how the industry normally categorizes a core ERP player), but also a systems of operations specialist for real world factory floors. But despite that bedrock focus, IFS isn't the only IT vendor known for industrial software technologies. You don't have to look far to find German-born industrial automation company Siemens. My first job was with Siemens in its radar division, but the company is mentioned here for its MindSphere internet of things AI platform and its pedigree in digital twins, smart factories. Staying in Germany, Schneider Electric probably wouldn't be offended to be referred to as a smart buildings and industrial automation company. Its AI services are aligned towards tasks including energy management and smart manufacturing. The firm is also known for its EcoStruxure platform, an open and interoperable technology architecture built to bring digitized services energy management and operation control systems. It was a decade ago that stories focused on General Electric (GE Digital) and its Predix platform as detailed here. To reiterate the capabilities found pat GE, works to help connect industrial assets across the internet of things and the wider world of machinery and equipment to to the cloud and to each other. It does this for asset performance management and operations optimization, not dissimilar to the focus currently seen at IFS. Other contenders in this market include ABB, known for its process optimization technologies and AI-powered robotics. Bosch doesn't just make handdrills and drillbits, it also makes industrial automation and mobility products. More centalized on industrial AI for tasks like redictive maintenance and asset performance are Uptake, and SparkCognition. As an additional note, remember that IBM has a specific iteration of Watson AI for industrial applications; Microsoft has Azure AI for industrial analytics (working in partnership with companies including Honeywell); Google Cloud has services dedicated to AI-enhanced vision-based inspection in industrial settings and AWS has its Lookout for Equipment and Lookout for Vision brands for automated quality inspection. A New Industrial Agent? Has IFS actually come forward with a new class of agentic AI here? The naysayer might say it is potentially possible to custom-align any form of agentic service into any job or task, that's why agentic services are always described as essentially non-deterministic, capable of drawing data resources from any source (both small and large language models) and remain adaptable on an ongoing basis. Conversely, a more positive view might suggest yes, this is industrial AI because there are ERP and field service management companies aplenty, but few have defined their target verticals to be as narrowly dedicated as IFS has (key sectors for the company are named above, but think aerospace and engineering from first principles), which is a focus that IFS has 'positively restricted' its focus to for many years. To apply a standardized agentic AI service that works in a call center and stick it on an oil rig operations center is not always sensible; it takes more than a crowbar (virtual or real) to make that happen. This is not chatbots and copilots, this is a case of AI agents with yellow hard hats.
