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The Indian Express, By:  Reuters  |   January 26, 2018,  Viacom Inc Chief Executive Robert Bakish and CBS Corp CEO Leslie Moonves have had an exploratory discussion about merging the two media companies, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters on Thursday. The discussion is a potential first step toward a recombination of CBS and Viacom. The boards of both companies have regularly scheduled meetings in the next several weeks and are expected to discuss the potential merger, the sources said. The discussion between Bakish and Moonves, which took place earlier this month, was preliminary and no decisions have been made, but it signals that Moonves, who has had reservations about a potential deal between the companies, could be more open to the idea. The sources wished to remain anonymous because they are not permitted to speak to the media. Viacom and CBS declined to comment. A spokeswoman for Shari Redstone declined to comment. ...

The Indian Express,  Written by  Shubhajit Roy  | New Delhi |  January 26, 2018 Prime Minister  Narendra Modi  and the 10 visiting leaders from the Association of South East Asian Nations ( ASEAN ) have agreed to set up a mechanism on maritime cooperation to counter the common “traditional” and “non-traditional” challenges they face. This idea evolved during a two-hour-long informal discussion on “maritime cooperation and security” at a “retreat” hosted by Modi at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Thursday. The ASEAN leaders will be the chief guests at the  Republic Day  parade on Friday. In his remarks at the plenary session of the India-ASEAN commemorative summit, Modi said they discussed issues related to the Indo-Pacific region during the retreat. While there was no mention of “Indo-Pacific” in the Delhi declaration, there was also no mention of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — where there are clear divergences between India and ...

The Dawn, AP, January 26, 2018, Washington The Trump administration on Thursday designated as global terrorists six individuals accused of supporting the Taliban and Haqqani network in Afghanistan. The administration stressed their links to Pakistan. Among them are senior members of the former Taliban government in Afghanistan, including former central bank governor Abdul Samad Sani. The six individuals, said to have been part of Taliban leadership bodies in Pakistan, are alleged to have provided financing and weapons for militants involved in attacks on US-led coalition forces. President Trump’s policy, unveiled last summer, is intended to turn around the 17-year war in Afghanistan by boosting the US military’s help to Afghan government forces and by pressuring Pakistan to cooperate. “The Pakistan government must work with us to deny the Taliban and the Haqqani network sanctuary and to aggressively target terrorist fundraising,” Mr. Mandelker, the undersecretary for terror...

The Dawn,  The Newspaper's Staff Reporter,  January 26, 2018, Islamabad The Uni­ted Nations Security Coun­cil’s sanctions monitoring team on Thursday started its two-day trip to Pakistan for an assessment of the country’s compliance with the world body’s sanctions regime. “The Monitoring Team (MT) of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 1267 Sanctions Committee, dealing with the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and Daesh, is in Pakistan for a two-day visit,” Foreign Office spokesman Dr Muhammad Faisal told journalists at the weekly media briefing. The spokesman said that the visiting team was being briefed about the steps being taken by Pakistan in compliance with the UN sanctions. Moreover, the delegation was apprised of Pakistan’s perspective on terrorist threat in the region. The team would submit its visit report to the sanctions committee. Dr Faisal explained that besides assessing the compliance status of the country being visited by the team, the monitoring body a...

The Financial Express,  By:  PTI | New Delhi |  Published: January 25, 2018  Public sector banks (PSBs) have kick-started the review of their overseas operations by identifying 41 units for “rationalisation” as part of the larger reform process, a top official said today. Rationalisation could be in terms of consolidation of operations, trimming of staff strength, exiting some of the non-core and non-profit activities or closing down some of unviable overseas offices. “Many banks entered the overseas markets. This activity has to be looked into. Banks have started the process already and about 41 operations they have decided to rationalise,” Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar told PTI. The government yesterday announced that it will infuse an unprecedented Rs 88,139 crore capital in 20 PSBs before March 31 to boost lending and revive growth. It also unveiled steps to tackle the bad loan problem which has reached record levels. The recapitalisation w...

The Hindu, Bengaluru, January 26, 2018 ‘Chartered accountant filed revised returns with false figures on loss from house property’ Nearly a thousand income tax paying professionals working in top companies in Bengaluru have been found to have filed fraudulent income tax returns seeking refund. The scam was uncovered during search operations — by officials of the investigation wing of the Income Tax Department, Karnataka and Goa — at the office and residential premises of a chartered accountant (CA) in Bengaluru on Wednesday. The tax officials found that he had been facilitating the fraud. The CA, according to a press release, would file revised returns of salary, with false figures on loss from house property, and claim refund. Nearly 1,000 such returns were filed, with loss claim aggregating to around ₹18 crore. The employees work in over 50 companies in Bengaluru, including reputed ones such as IBM, Vodafone, SAP Labs, Biocon, Infosys, ICICI Bank, Cisco, and...

The Economic Times, BY PTI | UPDATED: JAN 25, 2018, NEW DELHI Investment firm TPG Global led consortium is believed to have placed bid of about USD 1 billion for optical fibre asset of debt-ridden Tata Teleservices.  "A consortium led by TPG Global has placed bid of about USD 1 billion for optical fibre asset of Tata Teleservices," an industry source, who did not wish to be identified said.  When contacted Tata Sons spokesperson said:   "We decline to comment on this story".  TPG Global too declined to comment on the matter.  Tata group has entered in to an agreement with Bharti Airtel to sell mobile business of Tata Teleservices, which has debt of around Rs 40,000 crore. Bharti Airtel will pay about Rs 8,000-9,000 crore of the total debt, which gets transferred to it as deferred payment liability for spectrum of Tata Teleservices.  "The deal if goes through will be beneficial for TPG Global led consortium, given the length ...

The Economic Times, BY ET CONTRIBUTORS | JAN 26, 2018, By Kanwal Sibal India-Asean relations are receiving a considerable political, psychological and symbolic boost with the presence of 10 Asean leaders in New Delhi for a commemorative summit celebrating 25 years of ties. All will witness the R-Day parade as collective guests of honour, which is unprecedented and sends a powerful message about the future of the relationship.  The Asean region is an area where India's civilisational impact outside the subcontinent is the most visible. The imprint is that of ancient India, Hindu and Buddhist. Secular notions have inhibited the celebration of these historical bonds. If secular Europe can acknowledge the Judeo-Christian roots of its civilisation, India should not hesitate to leverage its rich links with Asean to deepen people level exchanges.  Asean's great achievement until now has been to make the big powers stakeholders in its economic prosperity, peace ...

The Economic Times,  BY ET CONTRIBUTORS | JAN 26, 2018 By Sanjay Jain  Over the last few years, Aadhaar usage has gone up significantly.  2017 was a banner year, with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) servicing 10 billion authentication requests, and 3.5 billion electronic-Know Your Customer (eKYC) requests.  September was the peak, where the UIDAI serviced an average of 48 million transactions a day. This is about 14,000 times the usage in September 2012. The number of systems that depend on Aadhaar as an identity provider have grown.  2017 was a challenging year with many incidents and claims relating to biometrics, privacy and exclusion. The government has had to learn to walk the line between transparency and privacy, and now deal with the attentions of international hackers, all in the middle of a very noisy debate. The growth and accompanying challenges are a reflection of the increased digitisation, and formal...