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January 08, 2018 The Trump administration believes that it is time to try something new other than maintaining strategic patience and offering inducements to Pakistan to prevent it becoming a safe haven for terrorists from where they can attack the US and its allies, a senior official said. He said the polices followed by the successive US administrations post 9/11 vis-à-vis Pakistan have not worked. The US is committed to not allowing either Pakistan or Afghanistan to become a safe haven for terrorists from where they can attack the US and its allies, said the senior Trump administration official who spoke to a group of reporters on condition of anonymity. “These sanctuaries really threaten stability in the region and they continue to fuel the overall terrorism problem that we’re facing,” he said. Noting that the “previous administrations have tried to exercise what they might call strategic patience or offering inducements like Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill which gave billion

Basharat Masood, January 08,2018 A research scholar from Kupwara in J&K has appeared in a photograph posted on social media holding an under barrel grenade launcher, with a message claiming that he has joined the militancy. Mannan Wani, son of Bashir Ahmad Wani, joined the Hizbul Mujahideen on January 5, states the message along with the photograph that appeared on  Facebook  and WhatsApp. According to Wani’s family, he was pursuing his PhD in applied geology at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). Speaking to The Indian Express, Wani’s brother, Mubashir Ahmad, a junior engineer, said: “We have also seen the picture on social networking sites. But we have no idea (whether he has joined militants or not). We lost contact with him on January 4 as his phone was switched off. We thought he had switched it off for some reason or lost it. As we couldn’t contact him, we lodged a missing report with police on Saturday.” Officials at AMU could not be contacted for comment but t

January 08, 2018 Pakistan's Ambassador to the United States Aizaz Ahmad Chaudhry has said that Islamabad is seeking a clarification from Washington over its recent announcement to place Pakistan on a  special watch list "for severe violations of religious freedom". “We have noted the announcement by the US State Department regarding placement of Pakistan on a special watch list,” the ambassador said in a statement on Sunday, adding that Pakistan was seeking clarifications from the United States regarding its rationale and implications. He also said that the steps taken by the government for the protection of human rights and rights of religious freedom in Pakistan must be acknowledged. The US State Department made the announcement last week under the purview of the US Legislation on International Religious Freedom. “It is, however, important to acknowledge that Pakistan is firmly committed to promotion and protection of human rights including the right to re

January 06,2018 The Centre’s move to recapitalise public sector banks (PSBs) has resulted in a surge in credit growth, a sign of revival of private sector investment in the country, a top finance ministry official said today. Financial services secretary Rajiv Kumar said the banking sector posted a double digit growth on year-on-year basis in December 2017. “Surge in credit growth: Sustained momentum post PSB recap decision - Banking sector posts double digit (10.7% Y- o-Y) growth in Dec’17, up from (7.2% Y-o-Y) in Oct’17, powered by #services & #retail,” Kumar tweeted. Earlier this week, Parliament gave its approval for issuance of Rs 80,000 crore recapitalisation bonds to PSBs to improve their balance sheets so that their lending capacity is enhanced. Besides, the finance ministry approved proposal for infusion of Rs 7,577 crore in six weak public sector banks as part of the recapitalisation plan to bolster capital adequacy ratio. All these banks, which got capi

K Ramumar, January 07, 2018 Enthused by the quantum jump in the volume and value of transactions in the last one-and-half years, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is examining the feasibility of introducing the next version of Unified Payments Interface (UPI). This version will allow transaction authorisation using Aadhaar-based biometric and mandate generation/recurring payment authorisation through one-time authentication. Banks, under the aegis of NPCI (the umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in the country), are closely examining the next version of UPI (UPI 2.0) keeping in view the aspects of user convenience and security. UPI is a mobile phone-based payments solution for effecting person-to-person transfers and merchant payments. To address security concerns if users lose their mobile phone or others being able to access their UPI PIN, bankers say an alternative transaction authentication mechanism using biome

Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu, January 07,2018 Nine months after India Today aired the sting operation that caught top Hurriyat leaders admitting to fomenting trouble in the Kashmir Valley for financial benefits from across the border, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) is likely to file its chargesheet this month. The chargesheet in the Kashmir "terror funding" case will be filed in the Patiala House NIA Special court before mid January. The agency has already moved Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) for clearance.   The chargesheet will be filed against seven accused including senior Hurriyat (G) leader Nayeem Khan and Farooq Ahmed Dar alias Bita Karate of the JKLF. The others include Mirwaiz Umar Farooq's close aide Aftab Hilali Shah alias Shahid Ul Islam, SAS Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Ahmad Shah alias Altaf Fantosh, the spokesperson for Tehreek-e-Hurriyat Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saifullah, Raja Merajuddin Kalwal . These accused have been charged with funding terror

January 07, 2018 A deputy director at the Unique Identification Authority of India has filed a First Information Report against  The Tribune  and its reporter Rachna Khaira for misreporting,  The Indian Express  reported. The daily had  reported  on how anonymous sellers, operating through messaging service WhatsApp, were allegedly providing access to details of the more than 1 billion Aadhaar holders. UIDAI manages the Centre’s Aadhaar system. On January 4, UIDAI had claimed that  The Tribune  had misreported an article about a breach of biometric data. In a  rebuttal  to the UIDAI’s accusation,  The Tribune  had stood by its report, and said the Aadhaar authority, in its response, had in fact admitted to the “misuse” of biometric data. The FIR also names the people who Khaira contacted during the course of her reporting and had mentioned in her  news report . “The above-mentioned persons have unauthorisedly accessed the Aadhaar ecosystem in connivance of the cri

January 07, 2018 Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said terror infrastructure in Pakistan continued to exist and the neighbouring country was leaving no stone unturned to instigate the youths of Jammu and Kashmir against India. He also asked India’s top police brass to take strong action in cases of riots and desecration of religious places. Addressing the annual conference of the DGPs and IGPs in Tekanpur, Singh said terror infrastructure in the form of training camps, launch pads and communication stations continued to exist in Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK). He said the neighbouring country was leaving no stone unturned to provide all help, including financial, to terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and that youths of the state were being instigated against India, people aware of home minister’s speech said. Singh said Pakistan’s encouragement to the separatist anti-India sentiment in Jammu and Kashmir often led to law and order problems. Highlighting the

January 06, 2018 The US has said it is suspending at least $900 million in security assistance to Pakistan until Islamabad acts against the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network militants. The volume of suspended aid touches $1.15 billion if a freeze formally announced earlier this week is included. A White House official said the amount could total $2 billion. Pakistan said the impact of the suspension on the pursuit of common objectives was likely to emerge in due course. The statement has prompted some analysts to wonder whether Islamabad would retaliate by choking communication lines that the US relies on for operations in Afghanistan. The US made it clear that the suspension had nothing to do with Pakistan failing to act against the alleged 26/11 Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed. "We have certainly expressed our concern about the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attacks being let out of house arrest in Pakistan. To my knowledge, that has nothing to do with that,&

Yatish Rajawat, January 07, 2018 It’s not often that you come across a book that presents all the research you need about a subject without being didactic and dense, especially something that many comment about, but very few understand. Coal occupies a central role in every discussion on energy policy, as it meets the bulk of India’s energy requirement. Unfortunately, coal as an industry is not considered important enough for researchers. It has, in the recent past, captured the national narrative only because of the scams and the cancellation of coal mines that followed. Even during the height of discussion around the  coal scam , its role in the future energy needs of the country was rarely discussed. Its role in energy policy is even less discussed publicly. Which is why Subhomoy Bhattacharjee’s book is so important and a must-read. It covers all the twists and turns of the coal scam, from the allocation to the court cases and cancellations. None of the companies expected

Tavleen Singh, January 07,2018 If Indian policymakers could speak to Pakistan as bluntly as President Trump did on New Year’s Day, we might one day hope for peace on our benighted sub-continent. The leader of the free world used Twitter to declare that Pakistan had been given more than $33 billion in American aid in the past 15 years and ‘they have given us nothing but lies and deceit.’ Sadly ‘lies and deceit’ is what India has been given every time one of our prime ministers has tried to make peace with our old enemy. This happened most memorably for this columnist when  Atal Bihari Vajpayee  got on that gilded bus 20 years ago and drove across the Wagah border in a genuine attempt to make peace. It was Vajpayee’s dream, since his foreign minister days in the Seventies, to make peace with Pakistan, so as Prime Minister he made his most dramatic gesture with that drive across the border. The bus was delayed by hours and we who waited on the other side joked cynically about ho

January 07, 2018 China shares some of the concerns of the US, about the terrorism problem in Pakistan and Washington is seeking to work with Beijing and other regional players to convince Islamabad, about the need to crackdown on terror safe havens, a senior White House official has said. As Trump Administration is determined to eliminate terrorist safe havens in Pakistan, which is key to bring stability in Afghanistan and in the region, the official hoped that China will play a helpful role in convincing Pakistan that it is in its own national interest to crackdown on these sanctuaries. Pakistan already has deep historical ties going back to many years and they have close military ties, the official said, adding that the economic relationship is also growing with the China Pakistan Economic Corridor. “But, China shares some of the concerns of the US about the terrorism problem. The US is seeking to work with other regional players and China would be one of the main ones to d

Abantika Ghosh, January 07, 2018 It is not often that India comes in for flattering mention when health indices are discussed. But Mission Indradhanush (MI), a Central government initiative launched in 2014 with an aim to achieve full immunisation, has managed to get its share of attention and international adulation, including a reference in a 2017 report of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Launched in December 2014, Mission Indradhanush was designed as a booster vaccination programme in 201 districts with low immunisation coverage to ensure that all children under the age of two and pregnant women are fully immunised against seven life-threatening diseases — tuberculosis, poliomyelitis, hepatitis B, diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus and measles. The word Indradhanush was chosen to represent the seven vaccines that are currently included in the Universal Immunisation Programme against these seven diseases — the number has since risen to 12 with the inclusion

       Mubashir Zaidi, January 06, 2018 Pakistan’s Ministry of Interior issued an unusual advertisement in many newspapers in the country on Saturday, urging the public not to donate to organisations involved in terrorism. “Donations only belong to charitable organisations, before parting with your hard earned money make sure that your money is not going into the hands of terrorists,” the notice said, cautioning that making donations, giving financial assistance or serving outfits that were banned or under observation under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997, and UN Act, 1948, was a crime. It warned of prison sentences of 5 to10 years and a fine of up to 10 million rupees, in addition to forfeiture of property. The advertisement named 72 organisations, which are banned or under observation for involvement in terrorism, barring them from collecting donations. The Jamat-ud-Dawa, the organisation led by Hafiz Saeed and its charity wing Falah-i-Insaniyat, responsible for mastermindin