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The Hindu Business Line, G Chandrashekhar October 25, 2017 The global pulse trade is in a tailspin. After living in a comfort zone provided by India in the form of a large ready market for long years, pulse exporting nations — many of them cultivating the leguminous crop with India as the primary target market — are now forced to grapple with new ground realities. To be sure, not only has India, the world’s largest producer, processor, importer and consumer, harvested a record pulse crop of 23 million tonnes (mt) in 2016-17 (sharply up from 16.4 mt in 2015-16), a repeat performance may be on the cards for 2017-18 as well. The first estimate of the kharif 2017-18 crop points to a harvest of 8.7 mt. Although 7 per cent down from the record 9.4 mt of last kharif, it is still a large crop. The target for rabi is 14.1 mt. So, 2017-18 may well see in excess of 21 mt, subject to normal weather. With such a scale of crop rebound, domestic availability has substantially expanded...

The Economic Times, PTI, Oct 26,2017 In a new directive, the Trump administration has made it more difficult for the renewal of  non-immigrant  visas such as H­1B and L1, popular among Indian IT professionals, saying that the burden of proof lies on the applicant even when an extension is sought.  Rescinding its more than 13 year old policy, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said that the burden of proof in establishing eligibility is, at all times, on the petitioner.  USCIS said the previous memorandum of April 23, 2004 appeared to place this burden on this federal agency.  "This memorandum makes it clear that the burden of proof remains on the petitioner, even where an extension of  non-immigrant  status is sought," USCIS said in its latest memorandum issued on October 23.  Under the previous policy, if a person was once found to be eligible for a work visa initially, they would usually be considered for e...

The Economic Times, BY PTI | OCT 25, 2017 A day after government announced a massive Rs 2.11 lakh crore capital support initiative, Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian today made a case for consolidation in the banking space saying the country ideally should have 5­7 large lenders.  In an ideal banking world of tomorrow, India needs to have both large public sector and private sector banks, competing domestically and being competitive internationally, he said in a lecture at SGTB Khalsa College here.  Citing example of China, he said, there are four big banks which are now amongst biggest in the world.  "The big question also going forward is should there be more majority private sector ownership in the banking system? What is a good banking structure for India 5­10 years from now and...basically India needs...we need about 5,6,7 reasonably big banks both public and private sector and to be able to compete domestically and to be competitive in...

CNBC, By David Reid, Javier E. David, October 25,2017 The United States has announced sanctions on Yemeni individuals and companies to combat the activities of al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State. The U.S. Treasury said the sanctions have been issued jointly with other countries as part of the newly-created Terrorist Financing Targeting Center (TFTC). Eight Yemeni individuals and one company, Al Khayr Supermarket, have been placed on a sanctions list. The move was announced Wednesday during a trip by US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to Riyadh, where he marked the opening of the TFTC. "Through this action we are aggressively targeting radical extremists in Yemen and the surrounding region who pose a direct threat to the security of the United States, Yemen, and the international community," said Mnuchin. The TFTC was created in May to stem the flow of terrorist financing and is jointly chaired by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia. Other members of the all...