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The Economic Times  February 13, 2018 MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank of India has scrapped numerous loan restructuring programmes prevalent among banks to restructure defaulted loans and made resolution of defaults time bound with the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code becoming the main tool to deal with defaulters.  The central bank has warned banks of monetary penalties and higher provisions if banks are found to have violated or found `evergreening' accounts to escape its stringent new norms on fixing defaults.  Almost all the schemes such as the Corporate Debt Restructuring, Sustainable Structuring of Stressed Assets or S4A, Strategic Debt Restructuring, and Flexible Structuring of Existing Long Term Project Loans stand abolished. The Joint Lenders Forum designed to resolve potential bad debts has also been disbanded.  Any failure on the part of lenders in meeting the prescribed timelines or any actions by lenders with an intent to conceal the actual st...

The Hindu  Piyush Pandey February 13, 2018 Steel baron L.N. Mittal-led ArcelorMittal and Mauritius-based Numetal, backed by Russian VTB Bank and Rewant Ruia as minority shareholder, have submitted bids to buy out distressed Essar Steel, in line with the corporate insolvency resolution process. Other interested bidders like Vedanta Resources, Tata Steel, JSW Steel did not submit any bids, the deadline for which closed on Monday evening, leaving only ArcelorMittal and Numetal in the race, said sources in the know of the development. ‘VTB backs Numetal’ Confirming the development, a senior official of Numetal told The Hindu, “We have submitted the bids for Essar Steel and are are hopeful of getting it. Numetal is backed by VTB Bank of Russia as the majority shareholder and Rewant Ruia and other professionals from industry as minority shareholders.” Rewant Ruia is the son of Essar Steel promoter Ravi Ruia. “Numetal bid complied with all the bidding guidelines ...

The Hindu Jacob Koshy February 13, 2018 For many years, the under-representation of women in science has vexed science policymakers across the world. The concern now is that the problem may also affect climate change-related studies. ‘Climate for women in climate science: Women scientists and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’, a study published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has looked at the question of gender in the authorship of reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world’s most authoritative compendium on the science of climate change. The authors, who are based at the University of Arizona, report that the proportion of female IPCC authors has seen an increase from less than 5% in 1990 to about 20% in the most recent set of assessment reports. They interviewed over 100 women IPCC authors across the world and found that while 87% of women reported a positive experience in the way they are trea...

The Hindu Prabha Kotisawarn February 13, 2018 India should not follow the raid-rescue-rehabilitation model.  Last year, India protested against the release of a report, ‘Global estimates of modern slavery: forced labour and forced marriage’, a collaborative effort of the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the Walk Free Foundation, and the International Organisation for Migration. The report estimated that there were 40.3 million “modern slaves” worldwide in 2016, with 24.9 million in forced labour and 15.4 million in forced marriages. It did not name countries, but the writing on the wall was clear as 17,000 interviews had been conducted in India, and 61.78% of the “modern slaves” were in Asia and the Pacific. Registering its protest with the ILO, India vowed to undertake its own surveys. The Chairman of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister, and member of NITI Aayog, Bibek Debroy, was scathing in his critique. He called the estimates on forced marriag...

The Hindu Sujatha Byravan February 13, 2018 While there are ongoing efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and restrict global warming to below 2°C or even below 1.5°C, there are also efforts to help us live in a world where average global temperatures are rising. These projects on adaptation have been funded or implemented in a number of countries, either by individual governments or with the help of external donor funds. Many projects on adaptation begin by studying what climate impacts are expected, what kinds of vulnerabilities exist locally and how these can be addressed in a given local context. However, a 2010 survey by James Ford and his colleagues of over 1,700 projects concluded that adaptation projects were not helping the most vulnerable communities, and benefits were simply reaching those who had been assisted earlier. When several projects from the global Adaptation Fund, an international fund managed by the United Nations climate secretariat to help dev...

The Indian Express Arun Sharma February 13, 2018 Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said “we will be providing evidence to prove that the handlers are back in Pakistan and they are the mastermind, influencing all this”. Blaming Masood Azhar’s Jaish-e-Mohammad for the attack on the Sunjuwan military station in Jammu and warning Pakistan that it “will pay for this misadventure”, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said “the demography of the cantonment and adjoining areas indicates the possibility of local support to the terrorists”. “All evidences which have been collected are now being compiled and, definitely, these will be given, as always, to Pakistan. Yet Pakistan, in spite of being given dossier after dossier, has not taken any action,” Sitharaman told reporters in Jammu. “On the contrary, we find that people who were directly responsible for the Mumbai attack and many others, particularly Mumbai attack, are free, and are happily roaming in Pakistan,” ...

The Indian Express Shubhajit Roy February 13, 2018  This is part of India’s maritime strategy to counter Chinese influence and activities in the region. This was one of the key takeaways of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Oman over the last two days. In a strategic move to expand its footprint in the Indian Ocean region, India has secured access to the key Port of Duqm in Oman for military use and logistical support, top sources have told The Indian Express. This is part of India’s maritime strategy to counter Chinese influence and activities in the region.  This was one of the key takeaways of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Oman over the last two days. He met Sultan of Oman Sayyid Qaboos bin Said Al Said and an annexure to the Memorandum of Understanding on Military Cooperation was signed  between the two countries.  Sources said following this pact, the services of Duqm port and dry dock will be available for maintenance of Indian mil...

The Indian Express Deep Mukherjee  , Milind Ghatwai  February 13, 2018 While Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara seeks to recover from the recent disastrous bypoll where the BJP lost two Lok Sabha seats and an assembly seat to the Congress, MP’s three-time CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan aims to mitigate three-time anti-incumbency. From crop loan and land revenue waivers to bonus payments and free crop storage, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh announced a slew of sops on Monday targeting farmers and rural voters ahead of assembly elections later this year. While Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara seeks to recover from the recent disastrous bypoll where the BJP lost two Lok Sabha seats and an assembly seat to the Congress, MP’s three-time CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan aims to mitigate three-time anti-incumbency and the set-back from the recently concluded civic polls in the state, where the BJP lost ground. Raje, presenting the last state budget before elections, on...

The Indian Express Sushant Singh  February 13, 201 New Delhi, The three-day FATF meeting, which starts on Sunday, will consider technical compliance to the requirements of the FATF recommendations agreed upon by Pakistan. Pakistan is likely to be “grey-listed” for terrorist financing and money laundering by the multi-national Financial Action Task Force (FATF) at its plenary meeting in Paris early next week. This will put Islamabad under stringent checks in conducting international financial transactions and affect foreign investments and commercial lending to Pakistan. The three-day FATF meeting, which starts on Sunday, will consider technical compliance to the requirements of the FATF recommendations agreed upon by Pakistan. Pakistan has fallen short of the requirements by not promulgating legislation to stop money laundering and terrorist financing. It has also not taken action against “proscribed groups” under UN Security Council Resolution 1267, such as ...

The Economic Times, Vivek Wadhwa, dated 13/02/2018 The Rs 136 crore fine imposed on Google for discriminatory search operation was nothing more than a slap on the wrist for the company.  The Google issue, though, is bigger than money. It is about power and control. If India does not rein in foreign technology companies, it will suffer under corporate colonialism.  Companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon will be able to monitor practically all Indian citizens and influence their social and political preferences — while they crush competitive businesses. This is because technology creates a winnertake-all system and captures more information than Big Brother did in George Orwell's 1984. These are the things India needs to worry about far more than about search results.  Through our smartphones and their applications, Apple, Google and WhatsApp track our movements and habits, and know who we speak to and what we say. They read our texts and emails. ...

The Indian Express K. Sujatha Rao  February 13, 2018 National Health Protection Scheme redefines the role of the state — a service provider to the financier. It won’t be easy. The National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) is based on four assumptions and one hope: One, creating an effective demand to trigger private investments in supply deficit areas, two, enabling tapping of the 30 per cent unutilised capacity in private hospitals for the poor, three, covering 10 crore families with Rs 1,200 per family is affordable, and four, strengthening Wellness Clinics at the 5,000 population level will reduce hospitalisation. The hope is that, in this process, impoverishment will reduce and premature deaths will be averted. Positioned as the big idea whose time has come, the NHPS attracted attention and health was the breaking news of the day. The discourse, however, has centred round the gap between policy intention and actual fund allocation. The first assumption wil...

The Indian Express Express News Service February 13, 2018  New Delhi,  Eight declared serious cases, 5 CMs are aged below 50, only 3 women among 31.  Eleven of the country’s 31 incumbent chief ministers, or one-third, declared criminal cases against themselves in their last election affidavits, according to an analysis compiled by the Association for Democratic Reforms. Eight of these CMs declared serious criminal cases, such as murder, cheating and criminal intimidation registered against them. The Maharashtra chief minister declared the highest number of cases at 22, including three serious ones, followed by the Kerala CM at 11 cases (1 serious) and the Delhi CM at 10 (4 serious ), the ADR stated in a statement of its findings. In terms of assets declared, N Chandrababu Naidu of Andhra Pradesh, Pema Khandu of Arunachal Pradesh and Amarinder Singh of Punjab are the top three richest chief ministers. At the other end of the scale, Tripura CM Manik Sa...