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Ashok Gulati and Seraj Hussain, November 20,2017 Onions are, once again, in the news. Last week, retail prices touched Rs 50/kg in several markets, and wholesale prices touched Rs 30/kg in major onion markets like Lasalgaon in Maharashtra. This is not the first time that onion prices have spiked. Almost every alternate year, this roller-coaster of boom and bust in onion prices happens (see Graph). But 2017 is interesting as it saw record low prices in May-June when farmers sold onions at around Rs 2/kg in several mandis in Madhya Pradesh. This has led to grief and anger among farmers. The situation became precarious when farmers protested and police fired at them, resulting in some unfortunate deaths. The MP chief minister realised the sensitivity of the incident and quickly announced a decision to procure onions at Rs 800/quintal and state agencies procured 8.76 lakh tonnes. But in the absence of ample storage capacity in the state, onions had to be quickly disposed of through...

Shaji Vikraman, November 20,2017 Soon after the Pokharan nuclear tests in May 1998, global credit rating agencies such as Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s downgraded India’s sovereign credit rating from investment grade to junk. Finance Minister  Yashwant Sinha  criticised the “prophets of doom”, but the downgrade did not matter very much — the government’s firms went out and borrowed foreign currency at relatively competitive rates. The government and the Reserve Bank of India, then headed by Bimal Jalan, also designed two schemes — Resurgent India Bonds in 1998 and, a couple of years later, India Millennium Deposits — to bolster India’s currency chest and confidence. The  Atal Bihari Vajpayee  government also sent a strong note to the rating agencies on their approach towards India — leading to a virtual breakdown after major disagreements over several metrics. Agencies such as S&P, Moody’s and Fitch Ratings rate hundreds of sovereign countries. Typica...

Sushant Singh, November 20,2017 Asking the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to indigenously develop and produce a Man-Portable Anti-Tank Guided Missile (MPATGM) for the Army, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has decided to cancel the $500 million deal for Spike ATGM with Israel. The deal, seen as another proof of growing Indo-Israel defence cooperation, was expected to be signed after price negotiations with Rafael Advanced Defence Systems of Israel were completed last year. In anticipation of this deal, Rafael had entered into a joint venture with Kalyani group for missile production in India. The missile sub-systems manufacturing facility, based near Hyderabad, was inaugurated in August. Ministry sources told The Indian Express that the decision to cancel the deal was based on the consideration that importing a foreign ATGM at this stage would adversely impact the programme for indigenous development of the weapon system by DRDO. Earlier, India had also rej...

Anupam Dasgupta, November 20,2017 The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has identified Darul Sheikh as the key operator who from Dhaka controls an international network dealing in the distribution and peddling of fake currency notes aimed at damaging the monetary stability of India. The NIA is now investigating if Darul's cartel is actively behind the recent spurt in "Fake Indian Currency Note (FICN racketeering" across cities such as Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Ahmedabad. Also, the NIA is probing if Tajel Sheik alias Tiger Sheikh and Nasir Sheikh, residents of Malda in West Bengal close to the Indo-Bangladesh, who were arrested in March last year, were 'employed' by Darul to smuggle counterfeit Indian currency notes through the porous border into India. The agency had then seized fake currency worth Rs 9.8 lakh from the duo in demonetised denominations of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500. Both Tajel and Nasir were charge-sheeted by the NIA in Jun...

PTI, November 19,2017 The UK is trying to "misuse" its UN Security Council membership by pushing for a joint conference mechanism, which was last used 96 years ago, in the election to the last seat in the World Court on Monday in which India's Dalveer Bhandari is a front-runner, diplomatic sources said. Bhandari and Britain's Christopher Greenwood are locked in a neck-and-neck fight for re-election to the ICJ. One-third of the court's 15-member bench are elected every three years for a nine-year term, elections for which are held separately but simultaneously in the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council in New York. Britain is aggressively pushing in the UN Security Council for resorting to the joint conference mechanism which was last used some 96 years ago and against which there exists an unequivocal legal opinion, the diplomatic sources said. The "dirty politics" being played by India's former c...

IANS, November 19,2017 The Army said on Sunday that the top leadership of the Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in the Kashmir Valley has been wiped out with the killing of six militants in Jammu and Kashmir's Bandipora district. Lt General JS Sandhu, who heads the Srinagar-headquartered 15 Corps, told reporters: "With the elimination of six of its terrorist commanders yesterday (Saturday), the top leadership of LeT in the Valley has been wiped out." Giving details about Saturday's operation, he said: "Hajin was an area of concern for us. Terrorists had killed some people in the area. We inducted Special Forces into the area. Good information started pouring in. We were keeping Chandegeer village on our radar. These terrorists had been staying there in a house for two to three days." The General identified one of the terrorists killed as Osama Jungvi or Owaid, a nephew of Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi and probably the son of Zakiur R...

PTI, November 17, 2017 NEW DELHI: Stepping up probe into the  Panama Papers  , the  income tax department  has slapped criminal charges under the new anti-black money Act and launched fresh assessment of stashed offshore income against over half-a-dozen Indian entities in the list, official sources said. They said the department has detected undisclosed assets and stashed funds located in foreign countries in case of seven individuals and entities named in the leaks and the taxman has begun investigations against them under the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015. Sources privy to the probe said the tax department has ordered fresh assessment and also re-assessment of the income of these entities and will soon launch criminal prosecution against all of them as the entities had allegedly not disclosed offshore properties to Indian tax and banking authorities in the past. These are the firs...

A G Noorani, November 18,2017  a leading English daily Indian Express published a full-page report on criminal cases against union ministers and current and former chief ministers. Most of the 1,581 cases relate to rioting, unlawful assembly, murder and attempt to murder. In 1981, one of India’s most upright civil servants, B.K. Nehru, described the situation in these terms: “It is interesting, as an index to the kind of person who now wields power, that in one particular state no less than 30 per cent of the legislators are involved in criminal cases of one type or the other. The aim is to become a minister, but opportunities for private gain are not limited to ministers alone; these are available in plenty to all members of the legislatures.” Apart from those convicted of crime and those facing criminal cases there are ‘history-sheeters with criminal records’. But who is to bring them to book? The police force, of course. But the police is itself suborned by politicians...