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Business Standard, Tinesh Bhasin, December 7, 2017 The Aadhaar conundrum continues for the retail consumer. On one hand, the Supreme Court is yet to give its final verdict on its legality. But, on the other hand, precious data is being leaked and some companies have been misusing this 12-digit unique identification number.  Recently, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) initiated an inquiry against a telecom operator for allegedly opening payments bank accounts of its subscribers who went for Aadhaar-based SIM verification without their ‘informed consent’. Even Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India has issued an advisory to its customers. The insurer came across messages where policyholders were asked to link Aadhaar to their policies by sending an SMS to a designated number. LIC said it does not have such a facility. Already, there have been several cases where criminals have called people on the pretext of linking their...

The Economic Times,  ET Bureau, December 16, 2017, New Delhi The income-tax authorities have conducted surveys on brokers of Bitcoin across the country in the first major swoop on virtual currencies owing to suspicion of tax evasion. The surveys on nine virtual currency exchanges in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi and Kochi are aimed at ascertaining the source of funds and tax evasion, if any, following recent reports of large-scale encashing of cryptocurrencies, a Central Board of Direct Taxes official told ET.  "Surveys have been carried out to ascertain if there was tax evasion," said the official, who did not wish to be identified. The surveys have been conducted under Section 133A of the Income Tax Act, according to the official, who said the Income Tax Department is not concerned with the legality aspect of Bitcoins.  Bitcoin price has crossed Rs 11 lakh in India, setting alarm bells ringing among the authorities. The Reserve Bank of India, which h...

The Economic Times, IANS, December 13, 2017 The Delhi government on Wednesday formed a nine-member committee which will work to cap the profit percentage on medicines and consumables in the city's private hospitals, Health Minister Satyendra Jain said.  Addressing the media here, Jain said the decision was taken after several complaints of astronomical profits being made by private hospitals on medicines and consumables.  Jain said the committee had experts including President of the Indian Medical Association K.K. Aggarwal and Delhi Medical Council President Arun Gupta, among others.  "Take a genuine profit, but 1,000 per cent or 500 per cent margin is not acceptable," the minister said. Jain said the government had not fixed any particular profit percentage and left it to the experts to decide. Link- https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/healthcare/biotech/healthcare/delhi-to-cap-profit-percentage-on-drugs-in-private-hospitals/articlesh...

The Economic Times,  By Atmadip Ray, ET Bureau, December 13, 2017 Recently, the government seems to have told the Reserve Bank of India to transfer an additional Rs 13,000 crore lying with the central bank, as it looks to build a corpus to recapitalise public sector banks.  RBI has transferred Rs 30,659 crore to the government for the accounting year 2016-17, which was 99.99% of its gross income less total expenditure for the 12-month period to June. RBI's annual account closes every June. The transferred amount this year was less than half the `65,876 crore that RBI had paid in 2015-16 to the government, as its expenditure doubled due to a 135% rise in cost for printing notes and nearly 14-times higher provisions for transfer to contingency funds. The RBI started building special reserves such as the contingency fund for unforeseen situations, and the asset development reserve, currency and gold revaluation accounts after the 1991 liberalisation.Now, the govern...

The Economic Times, By Sachin Dave, ET Bureau, December 13, 2017 For a Hyderabad-based senior executive at an MNC, last Friday was rather stressful: He was invited by the tax department to high tea, and he had other top income tax payers in the region for company.  The executive had nothing to hide from the revenue officers, but he was merely concerned about confidentiality of his tax data.  This new initiative by the revenue department has spooked several high net-worth individuals (HNIs), while some others are happy with the idea. With income-tax offices across India set to invite up to top 100 tax payers in their regions for felicitation, several of these individuals have red-flagged data-privacy.  "It's a good step by the government to felicitate highest income tax payers as this is aimed at motivating and encouraging those who honestly pay taxes. However, it should be done on a personal level by issuance of a certificate or award. Such felicitation ...

The Economic Times,  By Joel Robello, Saloni Shukla, ET Bureau December 13, 2017 Loan officers at Kotak Mahindra Bank are spending more time in reading your Facebook posts, SMSes and payment data available in your mobile phone to decide whether to sanction a loan for you to buy a home or car, rather than relying solely on whether you repaid your credit card dues two decades ago. As banks sharpen their internal assessment of risk before lending, they are investing in analytics, data gathering and use of social media more now than on conventional tools like score from credit information bureaus, which capture borrowing behaviour.  It is not just Kotak but others too, such as HDFC Bank, Axis Bank and even state-owned banks like State Bank of India, which use social media behaviour not only for loan sanctions but also for tailoring sales pitch for products. They track data captured in Google Maps, payment to Uber cabs, or even your electricity bill payment records....

The Hindu,  DECEMBER 10, 2017 Anti-nuclear campaign group ICAN is Nobel Peace laureate  The leader of the group that won this year's Nobel Peace Prize on Sunday urged nuclear nations to adopt a United Nations treaty banning atomic weapons in orderto prevent“the end of us”.  The International Campaign to Abolish NuclearWeapons (ICAN) was awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize by a Nobel committee that cited the spread of nuclear weapons and the growing risk of an atomic war. ICAN is a coalition of 468 grassroots non-governmental groups that campaigned for a U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, adopted by 122 nations in July. The treaty is not signed by - and would not apply to - any of the states that already have nuclear arms. Beatrice Fihn, ICAN's Executive Director, urged them to sign the agreement. “It provides a choice. A choice between the two endings: the end of nuclear weapons or the end of us,” she said in her speech at the...

 The Economic Times, DEC 11, 2017 It's commonplace to blame the promoters of bankrupt companies of gaming the system for years by diverting funds, wilful defaults, perpetrating fraud and indulging in malfeasance. But the corporates argue they are not unmitigated villains. In many cases, their businesses caved in due to lax government response, policy perversions, harsh judicial interventions or even wrong incentives. For some they were fatal, for others severe bodyblows. Rakhi Mazumdar & Rachita Prasad get behind those macro mess-ups.  Essar  Steel Raw material disruptions  1. De-allocation of Reliance KGD6 gas in mid-2011 for domestic steel sector robbed the main fuel linkage (68% of Hazira plant dependent on natural gas) & hit capacity ramp up, capacity utilisation came down to 35% Revenue loss on account of non-availability of gas was estimated at over Rs 26,000 crore by company.  2. Essar Steel built a 267-km pipeline in 2005 to c...

The Times of India,  Bharti Jain |  TNN  |  Updated: Dec 11, 2017, NEW DELHI: Prominent Dubai and Pakistan-based Rohingya leaders have enlisted the support of Lashker-e-Taiba affliate Jamaat ud Dawah to espouse the cause of Rohingya settlers in Pakistan and other countries including India, according to latest intelligence reports. In fact, JuD offshoot Falah-e-Insaniyat is allegedly collecting donations from across Pakistan to provide relief material and medical aid to Rohingya immigrants. Firdous Sheikh, the Dubai-based president of Rohingya Federation of Arakan, had visited Pakistan last month to attend a seminar organised by NGO Al-Khidmat Foundation Pakistan (AKFP) in Manshera, PoK, and later a similar event in Islamabad, in support of Rohingya Muslims. During this visit, he met Naveed Qamar, JuD 'amir' based in Karachi, along with Noor Hussain, Pak-based leader of Rohingya Solidarity Organisation and President, Burmese Muslim Welfare Organisation...

The Times of India, Rajat Pandit |  TNN  |   Dec 11, 2017, New Delhi Around 1,600-1,800 Chinese troops have now virtually established a permanent presence in the Doklam area, near the Sikkim-Bhutan-Tibet trijunction, with the construction of two helipads, upgraded roads, scores of pre-fabricated huts, shelters and stores to withstand the freezing winter in the high-altitude region. Indian security establishment sources said while India "achieved its strategic objective" of not letting China extend its existing road in Doklam (or the Dolam plateau) southwards towards the Jampheri ridge, the fallout has been "the almost permanent stationing of People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops in the region ". "Earlier, PLA patrols would come to Doklam, which is disputed between China and Bhutan, between April-May and October-November every year to mark their presence and lay claim to the area before going back," said a source. "Now, after the 7...