Emergency workers in India have rescued a girl, 1, who was stuck 4.5 metres down a 30-metre borewell on a farm.
The incident took place in a village in Chhatarpur, in central Madhya Pradesh state, on Thursday afternoon, when the girl, named Divyanshi, was playing with other children.
Her mother, Ramsakhi Kushwaha, had gone for a Covid-19 vaccination.
Unable to find her daughter when she returned, Ms Kushwaha and other villagers searched for the child and heard her cries from the well, police said.
A team of 70 personnel from the State Disaster Emergency Reserve Force, police and army launched a rescue operation at 4.00pm. It took nine hours to free Divyanshi.
They dug into the borewell, which was 30 centimetres at most in diameter, using excavating machines.
Divyanshi was rescued uninjured and taken to hospital. Her condition is stable, police said.
“Villagers heard the child’s cries and informed us. Army, SDRF and local police were roped in and it took seven to eight hours to dig vertically and horizontally. She was safely rescued,” Sachin Sharma, superintendent of police, Chhatarpur, told The National.
“All her vitals are intact; she has no injuries,” Mr Sharma said.
Videos shared by a top administrative official on Twitter showed the moment rescue workers holding the child wrapped in a cloth rushed to an ambulance amid a cheering crowd.
The child was provided with oxygen and a surveillance camera was inserted in the pipe to monitor her movement.
But police said the operation was challenging due to poor visibility. There were also fears of the infant falling under debris and mud.
The teams had placed a wooden plank once they reached the exact spot where the child was stuck. They pulled her out and placed her on it.
“It was a very challenging operation … it is winter and the sun sets early … it was dark. We inserted a camera and were monitoring her on screen. While digging, it could also hurt her as it was not visible how she was reacting,” Mr Sharma said.
“Luckily, she was at a lower height and she had fallen like an apple straightway into the hands of the rescuers,” he said.
Children frequently fall into borewells in India, where there are an estimated 27 million wells.
As many as 40 children died in such accidents between 2009 and 2019, according to the National Disaster Response Force.
The police have not registered a case against the farm owner for negligence as they are waiting for the family to register a complaint. Farm owners are advised to seal the borewells to avoid such incidents.
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5. Profound social instability
Top 5 concerns in the Mena region
1. Energy price shock
2. Fiscal crises
3. Spread of infectious diseases
4. Unmanageable inflation
5. Cyber attacks
Source: World Economic Foundation
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
French business
France has organised a delegation of leading businesses to travel to Syria. The group was led by French shipping giant CMA CGM, which struck a 30-year contract in May with the Syrian government to develop and run Latakia port. Also present were water and waste management company Suez, defence multinational Thales, and Ellipse Group, which is currently looking into rehabilitating Syrian hospitals.
