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Indian Express February 05, 2018 Written by  Abhishek Angad  ,  Deeptiman Tiwary The chargesheet describes in detail how stone-pelting is allegedly organised in the Valley through WhatsApp groups and protest calendars, which also ask people “to celebrate Pakistan Day”. Six months ago, when the National Investigation Agency (NIA) registered a case of alleged terror funding against 12 accused, including Kashmiri separatists, it claimed that they were receiving funds from Pakistan-based outfits such as Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen. And, it claimed, they had close links with LeT chief Hafiz Saeed and Hizb leader Syed Salahuddin. However, its 1,200-page chargesheet shows the agency has relied heavily on “open source” information on the accused, which is generally available in the public domain, to press its charges: participation in funerals, a letter written by the Pakistan prime minister, their history of militancy, raising of Pakistan flags and ISIS posters during

Indian Express February 05, 2018 By:  Express News Service   Finance secretary Hasmukh Adhia said the imposition of LTCG was done in a “mild and modest way and without disturbing the stock market.” Claiming that the imposition of the long term capital gains (LTCG) tax protects the “small retail investors” and keeps a “financialisation of corporate savings” in check, finance secretary Hasmukh Adhia said on Sunday that keeping one set of investments outside the tax net would give rise to a “potentially dangerous situation.” “Lot of people used to tell us, please, there is one very good story going in India of the stock market becoming bullish. Don’t disturb that good story. Then there were others who used to tell that this is the best time to do it… We have not disturbed it (the stock market) at all… Look here, you tell me. Is there any logic of keeping one class of investments, completely out of the tax net,” Adhia said while addressing a gathering at the Indian Institute

Indian Express February 05, 2018 Written by  Udayan Mukherjee The bad news about Budget 2018 is not that the Sensex tanked 800 points on Friday. That was only a symptom, an expected reaction to the long term capital gains tax and fiscal slippage. The real bad news is that  Arun Jaitley  chose to make it an election campaign speech without having the resources to back his promises. This was never going to be an easy budget to pull off. The challenges were too many, fiscal space next to nothing. Yet, it is in such desperate times that true reformers find the courage to think out of the box and attempt something bold. What we needed was imagination and innovation. What we got was a hollow document, that only looks good on paper. In the cold light of the morning after, it appeared less attractive than it may have on budget day. As the Sensex showed. The only visionary idea of this budget is the national health protection scheme for 10 crore families. The scale of the idea is

Indian Express February 05, 2018 Written by  Asad Rehman Its encryption protects the privacy of users but prevents action against those using it to spread fake news, rumours and communal tension. The recent violence in Uttar Pradesh’s Kasganj displayed, once again, the threat WhatsApp can pose in such fragile times. After the death of a youth, Chandan Gupta, in the violence, rumours were spread claiming the death of another person — Rahul Upadhyay. These rumours were circulated on Twitter,  Facebook  and WhatsApp groups, among other social media platforms. Some publications even carried the “news” of Upadhyay’s death, which added to the the communal tension. Upadhyay later clarified to the media that the rumours of his death were greatly exaggerated, and were being used by people spreading hate and paranoia on social media. The situation is distressing because there is no apparent solution or even a proper diagnosis of the problem WhatsApp poses for law enforcement agenci

Economic Times February 05, 2018 By  Aman Sharma New Delhi: The government plans to use Aadhaar to implement its mega healthcare scheme announced in the Budget to ensure that only genuine persons benefit. The claim amount may be credited into the hospitals' accounts through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).  Discussions have been held during the formulation of the 'National Health Protection Scheme' on the use of Aadhaar, with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) recommending the same, government sources told ET. Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act mandates that money spent on any scheme from the Consolidated Fund of India has to be linked with Aadhaar and the Centre has imposed an additional cess of 1% to get Rs 11,000 crore for this scheme. "Yes, Aadhaar can certainly help in better targeting of such programmes," UIDAI CEO Ajay Bhushan Pandey told ET. "Aadhaar will keep fake beneficiaries at bay so that genuine people can get all the

Economic Times February 04, 2018 PTI NEW DELHI: A former employee of e-payment platform Paytm has been named in a charge sheet by the CBI for allegedly cheating the company by using its system of generating employee IDs and default passwords.  Sawan Narender Aware has been charged by the agency along with five more accomplices under IPC sections related to criminal conspiracy, cheating and violation of Information Technology Act, a CBI official said.  The probe found that Sawan, who was well aware about the refund process, lured customers of various products with attractive discounts ranging from 20 per cent to 50 per cent on various products sold through the Paytm website, the agency has alleged.  The CBI has charged Sawan, who worked with the company for about two months before he quit and started this alleged fraud, along with Suraj Thakur, Purushottam Yadav, Deepak Yadav, Tushar Rewaria and Rajesh Meho, officials said.  Sawan generated 100 per cent discount fr

The Hindu Dated: February 05, 2018 By-Priyanka Pulla This needs more effort, but given the high burden of cervical cancer in India, waiting longer could be unethical The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine has run into more trouble. In January, a Rome-based epidemiologist, Tom Jefferson, of the Cochrane Collaboration highlighted in a paper worrying gaps in published data on the vaccine, designed to prevent HPV-related cervical cancer. Dr. Jefferson found that only two-thirds of the clinical trials on the HPV vaccine, manufactured by Merck Sharp and Dohme (MSD) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), had been published. This is particularly important in the light of his previous findings. Last year, Dr. Jefferson and other vaccine safety experts had questioned the European Medicines Agency’s (EMA) assertion that HPV vaccines are safe, after they found that the EMA had relied mainly on MSD’s and GSK’s analysis of clinical trial data to reach this conclusion. This is a problem because drug

Rediff.com Sumir Kaul, February 04, 2018 After over a decade of hounding and humiliation, the Central Bureau of Investigation has not found anything against former captain of Indian Navy Kashyap Kumar, who was dismissed by the government in 2005 for being allegedly involved in the infamous naval war room leak case. The CBI submitted its report quietly in a designated court and the Delhi high court late last year, saying that "the investigation in respect of petitioner Kashyap Kumar has concluded and the CBI has decided to close the case against him".   The status report on the CBI probe came on a petition moved by the 58-year-old captain in the high court seeking quashing of FIR against him. Disposing of the petition filed by Kumar, Justice Ashutosh Kumar had said in his single page order that the CBI, "on the strength of the relevant documents, has submitted that the case against the petitioner has been closed by the CBI". Kashyap Kumar was dismi

The Wire Kabir Agarwal, February 04, 2018 Arun Jaitley, presenting his fourth Budget as finance minister, announced that he is fulfilling a promise made by his party in the election manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha elections – the promise of a minimum support price (MSP) that is 50% higher than farmers’ cost of production. “Government has decided to keep MSP for all the unannounced crops of kharif at least at one and half times of their production cost,” said Jaitley, and went on to add that this decision will prove to be a ‘historic’ step towards doubling the income of farmers. However, on closer inspection, it has emerged that the finance minister’s announcement is misleading. The MSP for eligible crops is declared by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP). The CACP has three different definitions of productions costs – A2 (actual paid out cost), A2+FL (actual paid out cost plus imputed value of family labour) and C2 (comprehensive cost including imputed re

The Financial Express February 05, 2018 That Thursday’s Rs 11,000 crore auction of government securities had to be cancelled after bond yields spiked by nearly 20 basis points on Thursday is a matter of concern. This is the fourth auction cancelled by RBI in just over a month. The sharp sell-off in the bond markets on Thursday was driven by apprehensions that the government might once again slip on its deficit targets in 2018-19, as it has in 2017-18 and also that food inflation would trend up following the government’s decision to support crop prices if farmers aren’t able to get the MSP. The markets are nervous and unsure of what to expect even though the net borrowing for 2018-19 at Rs 4.62 lakh crore is projected to be quite similar to that in 2017-18. Bond yields have risen 90 basis points in the last three months and 32 basis points since January 17 when Viral Acharya, deputy governor, RBI said the central bank was not in a position to bail banks out every time they

The Times of India IANS, February 03, 2018 NEW DELHI:  Pakistan  is offering scholarships to Kashmiri students to prepare a generation which will be inclined towards it and most of the youth on student visa in the neighbouring country were relatives of terrorists, the National Investigation Agency said in its chargesheet in the terror funding case. "During the course of investigation, it was ascertained that students who were proceeding to Pakistan on student visas were either relatives of ex-terrorists or relatives of families of active terrorists who had indulged in various anti-national activities and had migrated to Pakistan or they were known to  Hurriyat  leaders," it said. The probe agency also claimed that their visa applications were recommended to the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi by various Hurriyat leaders including hardline Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani. The chargesheet filed in a court here on January 18 revealed that te