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PTI Jan 14, 2018, 12.34 PM Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday launched options trading in guarseed on the commodity bourse NCDEX and asserted that the new initiative will benefit farmers and ensure better prices in the coming days. Higher production has led to fall in prices of some agri-commodities in some places, he said, adding that options trading is one of the major steps towards taking farmers out of this situation. NCDEX is the second exchange after MCX to launch options trading in commodities. In October 2017, MCX had launched gold options. Guarseed is the first agri-commodity options. Options are derivatives which give a buyer the right but not the obligation to buy or sell an underlying asset or instrument at a specific price on or before a certain date. "I hope this initiative will provide a huge benefit to farmers in the coming days," Jaitley said at the launch event. Lauding the contribution of farmers, he said they have left

NEW DELHI, JANUARY 14:   Noted development economist Jean Dreze has pitched for more inclusive and active social policies in India, saying even a high rate of economic growth has failed to improve the quality of life of a large section of people in the country. Dreze also expressed concern over widespread underemployment and stagnating wages, which according to him, reflected ‘lopsidedness of economic growth in India.’ “What is even more worrying is that relatively fast economic growth continues to go hand in hand with sluggish improvements in people’s living conditions and the quality of life. Addressing this requires not only more inclusive growth but also more active social policies,” Dreze told  PTI  in an interview. Dreze, a former member of the former UPA government’s National Advisory Council, said that had India’s economic growth been more labour-intensive then the country would have seen an increase in real wages, and possibly an increase in women’s participation in

NEW DELHI, JANUARY 14:   Looking to bring a wave of labour reforms this year, the government will push its first labour code — Wage Code Bill — in the forthcoming budget session which would enable it to set benchmark minimum wage for different regions. “Wage Code Bill will be the first labour code which would be pushed for passage in the budget session. Labour Ministry is expecting Parliament’s select committee to table the bill in the budget session beginning by the end of this month,” a source said. The draft Code on Wages Bill 2017 was introduced in the Lok Sabha in August 2017. Thereafter, it was referred to the select committee for scrutiny. The bill seeks to combine Payment of Wages Act, 1936, the Minimum Wages Act, 1949, the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965, and the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976, into one code. Minimum wages, ease of compliance The Ministry of Labour and Employment aims to combine over 44 labour laws into four broad codes in wages, industrial relations, s

ANAND VENKATANARAYANAN   ON   15/01/2018 What could Mehmood Akhtar – a Pakistani high commission staffer who was expelled from India after he allegedly engaged in espionage  – and Lord Hanuman possibly have in common? Strangely enough, publicly available evidence indicates the following. One, an Aadhaar number. Two, an LPG connection that is linked to their respective Aadhaar numbers. And three, a bank account that is also linked to their Aadhaar numbers. On October 27, 2016, the  Delhi police detained  Akhtar for allegedly possessing sensitive defence documents. He however, identified himself as Mehboob Rajput, and produced an Aadhaar ’card’ bearing the name and an address in Old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk. The address on the Aadhaar card – 2350, Gali Near Madari, Rodgran Mohalla, Chandni Chowk, New Delhi 110006 – is correct, except that the house is actually on G B Road, Delhi’s red-light area, nearly a kilometre away. He was promptly declared persona non-grata, and was asked

By Bipin Preet Singh JAN 13, 2018, 06.11 AM IST After the explosive growth of digital payments in 2017, fintech companies are gearing up to ride on blockchain and expand their portfolio of app-based services ranging from consumer lending to insurance products to cross-border remittances. And blockchain will be the technology to lead this fintech revolution in 2018. Blockchain — a protocol for exchanging value over the internet without an intermediary — has the potential to transform multiple industries and make processes more transparent, secure and efficient. Financial players are the first movers to capitalise on this technology infrastructure.  Several industries and governments are waking up to the disruptive potential of this technology. As India moves towards a less-cash economy after the remonetising of high-value currency notes in November 2016, digital payments are estimated to grow 10 times: from $50 billion last year to $500 billion by 2020.  Official fig

Abantika Ghosh  | New Delhi |  Published: January 14, 2018 5:36 am While the government has taken an in-principle call against the introduction of the cervical cancer vaccine in the public health programme, Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Deputy Director General (programmes) of the World Health Organisation, has said that India is a fit case for introduction of the HPV vaccine as cervical cancer now kills more women in the country than other maternal mortality causes. Speaking to The Indian Express from Geneva, Dr Swaminathan said that with cervical cancer killing 70,000 women every year and the screening programme patchy, India should look at both the vaccine and indigenous screening technologies not in isolation but as interventions that can together eliminate at least this form of cancer. Results of a pilot on HPV vaccine conducted in two districts of Punjab by the state government have shown encouraging results, she said. “India should introduce the HPV vaccine in its public healt

Mir Ehsan  | Srinagar |  Updated: January 13, 2018 9:34 am The family members of Bilal Ahmad Kawa ,who was  arrested in Delhi  in connection with the Red Fort attack case, on Friday termed his arrest illegal and accused police of framing him in a fake case. They also said that he was never absconding and also owns a house in Delhi. The family and relatives blamed the media for projecting an “innocent civilian” as a “terrorist” and demanded his immediate release. According to his relatives, Ahmad is married and a father to two young daughters. The family members and their relatives demonstrated in the city’s Press Colony on Friday. They said Bilal Ahmad owns a house near Sadar Bazar, New Delhi, and had gone to the national capital for a medical check-up. “My son went to New Delhi for a checkup as he has a health problem. His brother who lives in Delhi told him to come and he was detained at the airport,’’ said Ahmad’s mother Fatima Begum. She said that if he was involved in mi

The Financial Express  |  Published: January 14, 2018 1:43 AM The weapons earmarked for the struggle include submarines, underwater drones, robots and specialised ships and divers. The new battlefield is also a gray legal zone: Current Law of the Sea conventions cover some aspects of undersea cables, but not hostile acts. Most of us probably don’t realise this, but much of the infrastructure that makes the seamless working of the Internet possible lies at the bottom of the world’s oceans in the form of vast networks of fibre-optic cables that transmit data between countries. In the modern day, the Internet is our lifeline. Now, consider a scenario, which is nothing less than a nightmare. A terrorist organisation or some nefarious nation-state decides to derail the global Internet by faulting the undersea fibre-optic cables that connect the world. These cables, which run along the ocean floor, carry almost all transoceanic digital communication, allowing you to send a WhatsApp

Updated: Jan 12, 2018, 05.16 PM IST  NEW DELHI The commerce ministry is working on a comprehensive policy covering issues such as logistics to promote export of agri commodities like tea, coffee, fruits and vegetables, a senior official said.  India is one of biggest producers and exporters of agri commodities, and still holds huge potential to increase shipments.  "So, the possibility of value addition and moving up in the global value chain is immense. All important elements such as logistics, certification and traceability of items would be part of the new policy," the official said.  It is important to have proper infrastructure to promote exports.  This move would help serve the government's objective to double farmers' income and increasing exports.  The ministry has started the process of identifying factors such as where maximum import demand is, areas that can be looked at, India's contribution to, and steps required to promote

January 11, 2018 22:52 IST | KR Srivats The Santa season may be behind us. But the banking system is pinning hopes on Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to deliver more goodies in the upcoming Budget to support economic growth and help take the economy out of the current morass. The expectations are high with this being the last full-fledged Budget for Jaitley before the 2019 General Elections. Hopes are also high that surgical strikes will not happen to cure the ailing banking system. Legislative changes Besides spelling out the contours of the reforms that banks need to deliver to avail the proposed ₹1.35-lakh crore Recap Bonds, Jaitley is also widely expected to throw some light on the legislative amendments that will be carried out in the coming days to strengthen the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). A 14-member expert committee set up by the Corporate Affairs Ministry is reviewing the IBC implementation and it’s recommendations are going to form the basis of th

THE TIMES OF INDIA Jan 12, 2018 The third-quarter earnings season is getting underway but the usual social media chatter about upcoming results is muted. This follows the markets regulator cracking down on WhatsApp groups over the accusation that inside information was exchanged among their members. Such chat groups have been information-sharing hubs for brokers, analysts, traders, journalists and portfolio managers for years. Many have now shut while others have seen mass exits. The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) recently seized laptops and mobile phones of 34 dealers and brokerage analysts to discover the source of earnings leaks before the numbers were sent to the bourses. Some of the individuals belonged to the Market Chatter WhatsApp group, which is said to have posted results of companies well before they were released by the exchanges. ET spoke to about a dozen market participants who have either been administrators or members of such Whats

BUDGET 18 Jan 14, 2018 The final report of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 4, published January 12, is a stamp of approval for the National Health Mission (NHM), according to experts. The 10 years between NFHS 4 and NFHS 3, saw the ambitious NHM and its crucial rural segment, the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), unfold, making the latest survey a comment on the Mission’s outcomes.  A health researcher, with over 10 years of experience in the field, told News18 that some of the data showed how social interventions of the NHM, instead of just direct health interventions, worked to better India’s key indicators.  The report reveals the successful interventions of health, literacy and awareness, especially in women, who form a bulk of the NFHS 4’s 803211 sample size. The sample size of 568,200 households is substantially more than the 109,000 households in NFHS 3. This solved the conundrum of lowered use of contraceptives and lowered fertility rates t

DAWN Jan 12, 2018 China’s plan for a modern Silk Road of railways, ports and other facilities linking Asia with Europe hit a $14 billion pothole in Pakistan. Islamabad’s relations with Beijing are so close that officials call China their “Iron Brother”. Despite that plans for the Diamer-Bhasha Dam were thrown into turmoil in November when the chairman of Wapda said Beijing wanted an ownership stake in the hydropower project. He rejected that as against Pakistan’s interests. China issued a denial but the official withdrew the dam from among dozens of projects being jointly developed by the two countries. From Pakistan to Tanzania to Hungary, projects under President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative are being cancelled, renegotiated or delayed due to disputes about costs or complaints host countries get too little out of projects built by Chinese companies and financed by loans from Beijing that must be repaid. In some areas, Beijing is sufferin

WordPress Jan 12, 2018 It has not been long since Monsanto was first exposed to poisonous herbicides. Along with this, exposure to hazardous chemicals in vaccines. Who knew they were connected? They are! The test confirmed that the vaccines are contaminated with Monsanto herbicide. Monsanto uses a weed killer, which is mass produced, and recently its traces were found in vaccines. This chemical is used to literally kill living organisms, and it is injected into us. This is the main sign of negligence on the part of the big Pharma, and it can not pass without consequences. It’s just wrong. Moms all over America are a group to fight against chemicals, which conducts campaigns throughout America. Recently, they sent 5 children’s vaccines for testing for a primary chemical substance found in the killer of weeds – glyphosate. The results they received were frightening and open  Results: Earlier this year, moms across America sent five children’s vaccines to an indepe