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Express News Service | Mumbai | Published: January 15, 2018 3:36 am  Foreign tourists with e-visas arriving in India on cruise ships are now exempt from registering their biometric details immediately after arrival. The Ministry of Shipping has announced that it has made the process voluntary for a span of three years, allowing tourists to register details at a time of their choosing after arrival. In a new set of Standard Operating Procedures for cruise tourism agreed upon last year, the ministry had emphasised on a need to digitise the process of immigration checks. The new measure, announced last week, is aimed at reducing the time it takes for tourists to exit the port upon arrival. Currently, with cruise liners with at least 2,000 passengers berthing at different ports in the country, it takes an average of two minutes to process each passenger. The Shipping Ministry requested Home Ministry to exempt tour...

Rahul Tripathi | New Delhi | Updated: January 16, 2018 5:57 am To tackle cyber crime, racial abuse and communal propaganda on social media, the Centre has directed states “to gear up institutional mechanism” and “maintain data of suspects” which may also help deal with child pornography and blackmail, among others. Expressing concern over sudden spurt in cyber crime, a letter sent by MHA joint secretary Kumar Alok to states and Union territories on January 13 laid down eight-point guidelines to prevent, detect and strengthen the tools to investigate such crimes. “Cyber crime cases pose technical, administrative as well as legal challenges in investigation. There is a need to gear up the institutional mechanism to tackle the cyber crimes,” noted the advisory. The letter also identified some of these crimes as defacement of government websites, online stalking/harassment and data theft, among others. ...

Ritu Sarin | New Delhi | Updated: January 16, 2018 7:10 am  Just over two months ago, senior lawyer Prashant Bhushan and Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra locked horns in the Supreme Court after Bhushan demanded that the CJI recuse himself from the Lucknow medical college graft case. The CJI refused to do so and Bhushan stormed out of the court. Now he is back with a new complaint against the CJI in the same case and has sent copies of it to the four “rebel” judges, Justices J Chelameswar, R Gogoi, K Joseph and M B Lokur. A copy of the complaint was also sent to Justice A K Sikri. Signed by Bhushan, as Convenor of the Campaign for Judicial Accountability and Reforms, the complaint calls for an inquiry against the Chief Justice by either three or five senior Supreme Court Judges for what are described as “various allegations of misconduct.” The complaint alleges, “The CBI FIR makes alleg...

  Sushant Singh | Updated: January 17, 2018 8:34 am On Friday, the Ministry of External Affairs announced it would end printing family and address information in passports and offer a new jacket colour, based on an emigration check requirement status. What changes has the government decided to bring to the Indian passport? The government has decided to not print the last page of the passport, which contains information like the name of the passport holder’s father, mother or spouse, address, Emigration Check Required (ECR) and any old passport number with the date and place of issue. As the passport’s last page will not be printed now, passport holders with an ECR status would be issued a passport with an orange-coloured jacket. Those with non-ECR status will continue to get blue passports.   Why did the government decide to do this? The government accepted the recommendation of a three-mem...

Banikinkar Pattanayak | New Delhi | Published: January 16, 2018 6:07 AM     With the domestic steel sector recovering from a global price crash, the race to acquire input producers seems to be hotting up. The project management arm of Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Group and two other companies will acquire Brahmani River Pellets (BRPL) after Tata Steel’s deal to buy the Odisha-based pellet maker collapsed in October last year. JSW Techno Projects Management and Thriveni Pellets will pick up 49% each in BRPL from the latter’s holding company Aryan Mining and Trading Corporation (AMTC), while Mitsun Steels will buy 2%. These companies have sought the approval of the Competition Commission of India (CCI), stating the proposed deal won’t “cause any appreciable adverse effect on competition in any relevant market in India”. While the application doesn’t mention the deal value, sources told FE that JSW Techno could cough up `500-600 crore for its 49%...

Ajit Kumar Dubey New Delhi January 15, 2018 The Indian Navy is moving ahead with a big-ticket proposal for acquiring its third aircraft carrier which is expected to cost around Rs 1.6 lakh crore along with the additional component of 57 fighter aircraft. The Navy has one operational aircraft carrier in the INS Vikramaditya while another one, INS Vikrant, is under construction at the Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) and is expected to join service in the next few years. “The Navy is planning to field its Rs 70,000 crore proposal before the defence ministry in near future which will cost around Rs 1.6 lakh crore at the approval stage itself along with the fighter plane component and the actual costs will go higher further as the programme moves ahead,” government sources told Mail Today. The Navy has plans of buying 57 twin-engine fighter planes for the third aircraft carrier for which American F-18 and French Dassault Rafale are in the race. “If one goes by the co...

Bloomberg | Updated: Jan 16, 2018, 10.18 AM IS India will break up its debt-burdened flag carrier into four separate companies and offer to sell at least 51 percent in each of them as part of a disinvestment proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The core airline business comprising Air India and Air India Express -- the low-cost overseas arm -- will be offered as one company, and the process will be completed by the end of 2018, Junior Aviation Minister Jayant Sinha said in an interview Monday. Its regional arm, ground handling, and engineering operations will also be sold separately in the same process. A successful sale of Air India -- with $7.9 billion in debt, five subsidiaries and a joint venture, and a combined workforce of 27,000 -- is crucial for Modi, who wants to showcase his credentials as a reformist attempting to steer the state away from running businesses.  The airline, which is surviving on a taxpa...

The Indian Express Jan 16, 2018 Prime Ministers Narendra Modi and Benjamin Netanyahu may be setting the Twitter-sphere on fire with their one-liners about the India-Israel “marriage made in heaven” and materialising on earth, but geopolitics sometimes has an uncomfortable way of intruding into the present. Forty-eight hours before the Prime Minister broke protocol and welcomed Netanyahu with open arms at Delhi’s Palam Airport, Union Road Transport and Highways minister Nitin Gadkari was overseeing a $600 million pact with Iran’s Roads and Urban Development minister Abbas Ahmad Akhoundi, one which will enable Tehran to buy locomotives and freight cars from India. Gadkari was open about India’s ambitions in the latest chapter of the Great Game rivalry that is unfolding in inner Asia. “The new trains will also be used in the Chabahar-Zahedan railroad to accelerate development of the Chabahar Port in line with India’s goal to connect to Central Asia and ultimately Europe th...

Financial Express Jan 16, 2018 Days after four senior judges had targetted Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, a senior RSS leader has claimed that there was a political conspiracy behind the much-debated press conference on January 12. J Nandakumar has also lashed out at four top judges, Justices J Chelameswar, Ranjan Gogoi, M B Lokur and Kurian Joseph over the move, saying what ‘they have done is unforgivable’ because ‘they have tried to attack the uncompromising faith of the people in the judicial system’. Nandakumar, who is Akhil Bharatiya Sah Boudhik Pramukh of the RSS, has accused the four judges of ‘poisoning the waters’. He has also alleged that the public attack against the CJI came after his order to reopen cases relating to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. He has also claimed that Congress leader and senior lawyer Kapil Sibal was pulled up for seeking deferment of the Ayodhya title suit case till after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. “All these (developments) and Left...

The Hindu Jan 16, 2018 The Aadhaar project falls short in limiting biometrics collection to voluntary choice and in guaranteeing data protection What really is Aadhaar all about? Is the machinery that supports it constitutionally sustainable? How does the creation of a central identity database affect the traditional relationship between the state and its citizens? What, in a democracy, ought to be the role of government? On Wednesday, January 17, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court is scheduled to commence hearings on a slew of petitions that will bring these questions and more to the forefront of a constitutional battle for the ages. The verdict that the court ultimately pronounces will decisively impact the future of governance in the country. At stake is the continuing legitimacy of the social contract that the Constitution embodies. From voluntary to coercion The Aadhaar project (although the christening of it came later) was put in motion through an execut...

Times of India  Jan 16, 2018 The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007, saying it killed her as she allegedly planned to collaborate with the US against the 'mujahideen' if she returned to power, says a book by the banned terror group. "The return of Benazir Bhutto was planned at the behest of the Americans as they had given her a plan against the 'Mujahideed-e-Islam'. Baitullah had received information of the plan," the book claimed, in a reference to slain Pakistani Taliban founder Baitullah Mehsud. The Daily Times reported that no group had claimed responsibility for Bhutto's murder until the claim in the Taliban's Urdu-language book titled 'Inqilab Mehsood South Waziristan -- From British Raj to American Imperialism'. Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) chief Bhutto, 54, was killed in a suicide attack in Rawalpindi shortly after she had addressed an...

The Economic Times Jan 16, 2018 As finance minister Arun Jaitley hunkers down to prepare India's fiscal budget, much has changed in the tax landscape. The tax department has its heads, hands and computers full of the new goods and services tax (GST), with its ever-changing tweaks.  It's a reform that needs enormous resources to effectively mop up taxes that will visibly fatten the exchequer. Jaitley ought to scrap dysfunctional taxes, such as the personal income tax, and focus on taxing expenditure more effectively. The twin move will likely give the economy the consumption boost it needs.  India's relationship with avoiding income taxes is the stuff of movie plots. People living in lavish homes, driving luxury cars and shopping for expensive art and jewellery often do not even have a Permanent Account Number (PAN) card necessary for those with taxable income. It's also the country where the underlings serving the rich — from domestic helps to chauffeurs...