Nearly 50 prominent Hong Kong democracy activists who were formally charged on Sunday with subversion under the national security law appeared in court today for their arraignment, as hundreds of supporters gathered outside demanding the release of “all political prisoners”—the largest protest the city has seen in months. Among other things, they are accused of “inciting, procuring, inducing or causing” people to run in local legislative elections, and “inciting, procuring, inducing or causing” those candidates, if they win office, to block the government’s budget. Last month, Xia Baolong, China’s director of Hong Kong and Macau affairs, had called for legal scholar Benny Tai and activist Joshua Wong—both defendants in this case—to be “severely punished under the law.” And there’s also the more immediate question of whether the 47 activists will be granted bail; a separate court judgment last month appeared to set a precedent that the denial of bail should be the default under the national security law unless the defendant can prove they will not continue committing their alleged offenses.(i) advocating, engaging or participating in a scheme with a view to abusing his or her powers and functions entrusted under Article 73 of the Basic Law…after being elected to be a member (“Member”) of the Legislative Council (“LegCo”) for the purposes of: – (a) obtaining a controlling majority in the LegCo to indiscriminately refuse to pass any budgets or public expenditure to be introduced by HKSAR Government (“the Government”) regardless of their contents or the merits of their contents; (b) compelling the Chief Executive of the HKSAR (“the Chief executive”) to dissolve the LegCo under Article 50 of the Basic Law so as to paralyse the operations of the Government; (c) ultimately causing the Chief Executive to resign under Article 52 of the Basic Law entailed by the dissolution of the LegCo and the refusal to pass the original budget by the new LegCo; (ii) with a view to carrying out the Scheme, to stand or not to stand as candidates in the LegCo election (“the Election”), and/or inciting, procuring, inducing or causing others to stand or not to stand as candidates in the Election; (iii) undertaking or agreeing, and/or inciting, procuring, inducing or causing others to undertake or agree, to exercise or forbear to exercise his or her powers and functions under Article 73 of the Basic Law after being elected as a LegCo Member when examining and approving budgets for public expenditure to be introduced by the Government in accordance with the Scheme; (iv) undertaking or agreeing, and/or inciting, procuring, inducing or causing others to undertake or agree, to wilfully or intentionally fail or neglect to discharge his or her duties of a LegCo Member after being elected in the Election, that is, to uphold the Basic Law, bear allegiance to HKSAR of the People’s Republic of China and serve HKSAR conscientiously, dutifully, in full accordance with the law, honestly and with integrity; seriously interfering in, disrupting or undermining the performance of duties and functions in accordance with the law by the body of power of HKSAR.

On Feb. 28, Ambani’s Reliance Industries (RIL) said it had bought an additional stake in skyTran, a US-based company that has developed a technology for running pod taxis, for $26.76 million (Rs196 crore).“The proposed skyTran transportation systems would consist of computer-controlled passenger pods running on its state-of-the-art, patented Passive Magnetic Levitation technology and would use cutting edge IT, telecom, loT and advanced materials technologies to transport passengers in a fast, safe, green, and economical manner,” the RIL press release said. skyTran’s technology can be used in a pod taxi, which is like a driver-less cable car that runs on electricity. In India, the concept of pod taxis initially grabbed attention in 2017 when NITI Aayog, the government think tank, cleared the centre’s proposal to test three rapid transport systems with the use of pod taxis.

Currently, the government buys the Serum Institute of India’s Covishield vaccine at around Rs200 a dose. This vaccine is made from the master seed of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. The government also took a two-day break on Feb. 27 and 28 from the vaccination drive to upgrade its Co-WIN vaccine platform. Since Jan. 16, when India’s vaccination began, 11.55 million people have received at least the first dose, and 2.2 million have also received the second dose.

While Bitcoin is scaling new heights and is embraced by heavyweights like Elon Musk, India’s central bank doesn’t seem to have faith in cryptocurrencies. In an interview with business news channel CNBC TV-18 last week (Feb. 24), Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Shaktikanta Das said that the central bank has “certain major concerns about cryptocurrency” and its impact on financial stability. Another major concern for India’s central bank is the anonymity that virtual currencies offer to their investors. So, even as bitcoin continues to outperform other asset classes and has certain advantages, the concerns around cryptocurrencies are hard to ignore, especially for a regulator.

The US Small Business Administration (SBA) is expected to issue a rule as soon as Monday that will make loans from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) more generous for business owners without employees. But while loans to businesses with employees are based on payroll, companies without employees currently receive loans based on net income. Since Feb. 24, only businesses with fewer than 20 employees (including those with zero employees) have been able to apply for loans; that will continue until March 9, after which all companies eligible under the program’s rules will once again be able to apply. But companies without employees have been waiting on the SBA to issue its new eligibility rule before applying; even if that rule comes out on Monday, the two-week window focused on small businesses will be nearly half over.