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The Indian Express January 21, 2018 The government will soon bring in changes in the registration process for new companies to make it faster and more user-friendly, wherein applicants will be required to provide only “need-based” information, a senior official said. Corporate Affairs Secretary Injeti Srinivas said that if only need-based information is taken from the applicants, then with minimal information the name of a company can be reserved. “At that stage, it might not be necessary to give so many other details because name reservation might not lead to registration. Now, name is reserved for 20 days and earlier it was 60 days. Information should be need-based and need not increase the information burden on the applicants,” he told PTI. A new name reservation service is being developed and is likely to be in place on January 26, according to information on the ministry’s website. The ministry is implementing the Companies Act, among others. About the Central Re...

The Economic Affairs January 22, 2018 The Central government and a few states are all set to pitch for investments at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos starting Tuesday, with investor round tables and conferences lined up. The Indian push in Davos comes at a time when the NDA government is entering the last year of its current term, with global growth rebounding and interest shifting to other emerging markets. Apart from Prime Minister  Narendra Modi , members of his delegation who will engage with global investors in the Swiss town include Commerce and Industry minister Suresh Prabhu, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal and Petroleum Minister  Dharmendra   Pradhan, besides senior government officials. With printing of the Budget papers underway, Finance Minister  Arun Jaitley  is expected to attend the forum on Wednesday. The Indian presence will also be bolstered by the country’s top businessmen, including Mukesh Ambani, Tata Group chairman N Cha...

The Indian Express January 22, 2018 By March 31, India would have added over 7 million new jobs in the current fiscal year, according to Towards a Payroll Reporting in India, a report prepared by Professor Pulak Ghosh of IIM, Bangalore, and Dr Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Group Chief Economic Adviser of the State Bank of India, which was released last week. The estimate in the report is based on organised sector employment data — which include the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), and National Pension System (NPS) enrollment numbers — up to the end of November 2017, which the researchers have extrapolated for the full year 2017-18. In order to be conservative on estimates, and to avoid any data anomaly, they have excluded the zero-contribution accounts and considered new workers in the age group 18-25. Experts say these assumptions and exclusions are justified. However, they point out, the study does not provide the f...

The Hindu January 23, 2018 On January 20, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that Turkish forces alongside the Free Syrian Army had begun armed operations in the Syrian town of Afrin, to be followed by a push in Manbij. Turkish aircraft are bombing the city as Turkish and allied forces have moved across the border. Turkey has long threatened to enter Syria and clear out the forces of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF was created in 2015 by the various Syrian Kurdish political forces and their military wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), and the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ). The Syrian Kurds made a political decision that they would not have the ability to properly confront the Islamic State (IS) in northern Syria without an alliance with other minority groups (Assyrians, for instance) — and with the major Sunni tribes in the region (the Shammars, for instance). The SDF was created as a platform for the Syrian Kurds to join with t...

The Economic Times January 22, 2018 China invited Latin American and Caribbean countries to join its "One Belt, One Road" initiative on Monday, according to a draft statement seen by Reuters, as Beijing continues to diverge from the United States' increasingly protectionist tack.  Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said the region was a natural fit for the initiative, which China has leveraged to deepen economic and financial cooperation with developing nations worldwide.  Representatives from China and CELAC are expected to sign a declaration later on Monday, in the second time China has met with CELAC - a bloc formed in Venezuela in 2011 that does not include the United States or Canada.  The country is already testing US dominance in Latin America, offering the region $250 billion in investment over the next decade. It is the top trading partner of many countries in the region, including Brazil, Chile and Argentina.  Still, Wang played down...

Live Mint Jan 22, 2018 India’s second largest IT services firm Infosys on Monday announced it has been chosen as a technology partner by the A S Watson Group to provide services in the areas of data science and artificial intelligence. The strategic partnership will accelerate the global health and beauty retailer’s digital transformation initiatives, the company said in a statement. “Infosys has been appointed as an official technology partner by the A S Watson Group to provide technology services across data science and artificial intelligence,” it said. The collaboration is part of ASW’s technology partnership program that aims to forge strategic partnerships in line with the company’s long-term goals. Infosys’ offerings will speed-up ASW’s next-generation digital marketing platform, build robust artificial intelligence and machine learning frameworks for customer centric analytics, optimise operational efficiencies and improve scalability. “We recognise that our custo...

Live Mint Jan 22, 2018 The United States, not China, threatens the global trade system, China’s foreign ministry said on Monday, after US President Donald Trump’s administration called US support for Beijing’s joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 a mistake. WTO rules have proved ineffective in making China embrace a market-oriented trade regime, and the United States “erred” in backing China’s entry to the trade body on such terms, the office of the US Trade Representative said last week. Its report came as Trump weighs a series of trade actions against Beijing, including a decision in a “Section 301” investigation into China’s alleged theft of intellectual property, expected in the next few weeks. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said that since China joined the WTO, it had strictly followed the body’s rules, carried out its obligations and contributed to the development of the multilateral system. Other countries have benefited from trad...

Vicky Nanjappa January 20, 2018 The Hurriyat Conference and terrorists have a network of people throughout the Kashmir Valley who incite youth to attack all symbols of Indian sovereignty, the National Investigation Agency has said. While naming Hafiz Saeed as the mastermind in the terror funding case, the NIA said that he along with Syed Salahuddin incite the youth to attack all symbols of Indian sovereignty, especially Indian security forces who are deployed there for the maintenance of law and order. Under the overall guidance and instructions from Saeed and Salahuddin, the separatist leaders of Jammu & Kashmir and stone-pelters formed strategies and action-plans to launch violent protests and communicate the same to the masses in the form of 'protest calendars' released through newspapers, social media and religious leaders, creating an atmosphere of terror and fear in the State of Jammu & Kashmir. The NIA which is probing the matter filed a detail...

The Economic Times January 21, 2018 Open any boll here and you'll see it's destroyed," says Ganesh Shere, a farmer at a village called Jamb in Yavatmal district, about 160 km from Nagpur, in northeast Maharashtra.  He walks along the length of his bone-dry, four-acre cotton field and splits two dozen cotton bolls, with a stone or his fingers, to reveal the damage done by pink bollworms, which have become resistant to the genetically modified (GM) cotton variety he uses.  His yield this year has only been 200 kg, less than 5% of what he produced last year. Shere, a 61-year-old former police sub-inspector, pegs his losses at Rs 2 lakh.  Maharashtra is the state with the largest area under cotton cultivation in the country and Shere is among the lakhs of farmers who depend on the cash crop. The loss caused by the pink bollworm infestation have raised questions about the sustainability of GM cotton, which accounts for over 90% of all cotton grown in...

The Hindu January 22, 2018 Over 1,400 Myanmarese nationals who took refuge in Mizoram’s Lawngtlai district following clash between Arakan militants and the Army there in November last year have refused to return to their country, a senior police officer said on Monday. The refugees who fled Myanmar since November 25 last year following a crackdown on Arakan rebels by the Myanmar Army in the border areas refused to go back claiming that they were “afraid” of the Myanmar Army personnel, Superintendent of Police of Lawngtlai, Lalsanglura said. “Though the fighting between the Myanmar Army and the Arakan insurgents had apparently stopped and no gunfires heard for almost a month, the people who took shelter in four villages along the Mizoram-Myanmar border - Laitlang, Dumzautlang, Zochachhuah and Hmawngbuchhuah, still refused to return to their respective villages,” the SP said. The refugees were mainly from the border villages of Varang, Paletwa, Pakangwa and Mulaw in M...

Press Trust of India January 20, 2018 A federal court in the US today imposed a USD 5 million civil penalty on the North America subsidiary of India's Dr Reddy Laboratories for distributing prescription drugs in blister packs that were not child resistant, the Department of Justice said. "Dr Reddy’s failed to ensure that children were protected from potentially harmful prescription drugs," said Acting Assistant Attorney General Chad A Readler of the Justice Department's Civil Division. The court in New Jersey imposed the fine after a complaint that Dr Reddy Laboratories (DRL) failed to comply with the Poison Prevention Packaging Act (PPPA) and the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA). "Child-resistant packaging is a critical safety measure put in place to protect our country's children,” said CPSC Acting Chairman Ann Marie Buerkle. In addition to the USD 5 million civil penalty, the consent decree generally enjoins DRL from distributing ...