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The Times of India, Feb 20, 2018 SHANGHAI: Eleven Chinese warships sailed into the East Indian Ocean this month, a Chinese news portal said, amid a constitutional crisis in the tiny tropical island chain of the Maldives now under a state of emergency. A fleet of destroyers and at least one frigate, a 30,000-tone amphibious transport dock and three support tankers entered the Indian Ocean, news portal Sina.com.cn said, without linking the deployment to the crisis in the Maldives+ or giving a reason. "If you look at warships and other equipment, the gap between the Indian and Chinese navy is not large," Sina.com.cn said on Sunday. It did not say when the fleet was deployed or for how long. Rivalry between old foes India and China for influence in the Maldives became evident after President Abdulla Yameen signed up to Beijing's Belt and Road initiative to build trade and transport links across Asia and beyond. India, which has had longstanding polit...

Radio Pakistan, Feb 20, 2018 Minister for Kashmir Affairs Chaudhry Barjees Tahir has urged the students to use social media to effectively highlighting the Kashmir issue at international level. Addressing a function in Islamabad on Tuesday, he said students, representing the third generation in Indian Occupied, Kashmir are struggling for their right to self-determination and rendering sacrifices. The Minister said Kashmir is unfinished agenda of Indian partition and India is trying to bring demographic changes in occupied valley. He said due to fragile stance on Kashmir, India is fleeing from dialogue process to resolve this lingering issue as per UN resolutions. Link:  http://radio.gov.pk/20-02-2018/barjees-urges-students-to-highlight-kashmir-issue-through-social-media

Radio Pakistan, Feb 20, 2018 National Security Adviser Lt Gen (Retd) Nasser Khan Janjua says Indian forces are committing grim crimes on daily basis to uproot the just struggle of the Kashmiri people for their right to self determination. He was addressing a seminar on "Crimes against Humanity-Genocides and Ethnic Cleansing" in Islamabad on Tuesday. He said we deeply appreciate Azerbaijan's support of Pakistan's stance on Kashmir issue. He said both the countries support each other on different issues including Khojaly genocide and Occupied Kashmir. He said Pakistan considers Azerbaijan as its brother and close friend and both the countries also enjoy cordial relations. The National Security Adviser said Pakistan strongly condemns atrocities in occupied territory of Azerbaijan by the Armenian armed forces and expresses deep grief and sorrow over such type of heinous acts. He said Islamabad will continue to raise its voice against heinous tendencies and...

Reuters, Kate Kelland, Feb 20, 2018 (Reuters) - An outbreak of typhoid fever in Pakistan is being caused by an extensively drug resistant "superbug" strain, a sign that treatment options for the bacterial disease are running out, scientists said on Tuesday. Researchers from Britain's Wellcome Sanger Institute who analysed the genetics of the typhoid strain found it had mutated and acquired an extra piece of DNA to become resistant to multiple antibiotics. An outbreak of drug-resistant typhoid that began in Hyderabad in Pakistan in November 2016 is still spreading, according to experts from Aga Khan University who worked with the Sanger team. Official data on case numbers and deaths are not available, but local Pakistan media reports say health authorities detected more than 800 cases of drug-resistant typhoid in Hyderabad alone in a 10-month period between 2016 and 2017. The researcher found the bacterial strain causing the outbreak is now resistant ...

The Economics Times, Sarita C Singh, Feb 20, 2018 NEW DELHI: The Union Cabinet on Tuesday approved the methodology for auctioning Coal blocks for commercial coal mining.  Companies that submit highest bids for the coal blocks will win the auctions.  The auction process will be transparent like in the case of captive coal blocks and will be based on the amount companies agree to pay as auction fees per tonne, coal minister Piyush Goyal told media persons after the Cabinet meeting. The two staged bidding will start will calling technical bids. There will be no end use or pricing restrictions on the commercial coal blocks.  He said the Cabinet decision was the most awaited reform in the coal sector that will bring updated foreign mining technologies, investments into the country while rising output and saving forex.  He said the auctions will end government monopoly in the coal sector and improve efficiency of Coal India Ltd.  The...

Dawn, Feb 20, 2018 Bangladesh has agreed to sell a large stake in its stock exchange to a Chinese consortium, an official said on Tuesday, rebuffing a rival bid from India that raised political sensitivities. The Dhaka Stock Exchange on February 10 had approved the Chinese offer to buy a quarter of the bourse's 1.8 billion shares, but Bangladesh's financial regulator asked it to “further scrutinise” the decision. “The board has reconfirmed its decision about approving the Chinese consortium's bid as it is higher than its nearest competitor's,” said stock exchange spokesman Shafiqur Rahman after the meeting on Monday evening. The Mumbai-based National Stock Exchange had offered 15 taka ($0.18) per share during the tender process this month. China's Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges made a joint higher bid of 22 taka per share, or $122 million, and offered additional technical support worth nearly $37 million. The intervention by the Bangladesh Sec...

The Economic Times, Vatsala Gaur, Feb 16, 2018 MUMBAI: UltraTech CementBSE 0.07 %, India’s largest manufacturer of the primary building material, believes that acquiring debt-laden Binani CementBSE 0.06 % in the ongoing spell of industry consolidation would not breach the monopoly watchdog’s threshold norms on market dominance.  “There is no concern of coming under the scanner of the Competition Commission of India,” Atul Daga, chief financial officer of UltraTechBSE 0.07 % Cement, told ET. Daga said that in Rajasthan, where Binani’s India operations are based, Shree Cement is the largest player with a capacity of 19 MT. Ultra-Tech's installed capacity in the state is 8 MT. In this scenario, even after the possible acquisition of Binani's 6 MT plant in Rajasthan, UltraTech's combined capacity of 14 MT will still be lower than that of the market leader.  India is the world’s second-largest cement market after China, and is also the second-biggest produc...

News18.com, PTI, Feb 20, 2018 Amritsar:  A Pakistani drug smuggler was killed and 10 kg of narcotics as well as arms and ammunition seized along the Indo-Pak International Border (IB) in Punjab on Tuesday, the BSF said. The incident took place in the wee hours of the morning along the Barreke post in Firozpur sector of the IB where the Border Security Force and the special task force of the Punjab police laid an ambush to intercept cross-border drug smugglers and infiltrators. "Ambush (team) located two Pakistani smugglers approaching stealthily towards the fence after crossing the IB into the Indian territory," a senior BSF officer said. "When these smugglers were challenged, they opened fire on the ambush (team). In retaliatory fire, one Pakistani smuggler was killed, the other fled back towards Pakistani territory, taking the cover of darkness," the official said. The body of the smuggler, 10 kg of drugs suspected ...

India Today, Ajit Kumar Dubey, Feb 20, 2018 Continuing its strict policy against the firms facing action for indulging in wrongdoings, the Defence ministry on Monday issued a comprehensive list of firms who have either been blacklisted or business with whom has been put on hold. The documents issued by the Defence ministry also feature the name of VVIP chopper scam accused firm Finmecannica, which has changed its name to Leonardo in order to participate in the defence deals. The ministry reviewed the situation and decided to suspend its dealings with the new entity as well. The list also includes firm Offset India Solutions, which is under the scanner for its role in the alleged Pilatus aircraft scam and one of its senior functionaries Sanjay Bhandari. The dealings with the firm were put on hold on January 5 this year. The list includes six firms which have been debarred from doing business, 14 firms with whom business has been put on hold or transaction...

Tribune, Shahbaz Rana, Feb 21, 2018 ISLAMABAD:  Pakistan has sent Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Dr Miftah Ismail to plead its case at the ongoing session of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) that is taking up a US-sponsored resolution to put Islamabad on a list of countries that financially aid terrorism. Ismail left for Paris at the weekend to attend the FATF meetings, said officials of the Finance Ministry. The decision to send the adviser was taken abruptly. According to the original plan, the Director General Financial Monitoring Unit, a joint secretary-level official of the Ministry of Finance and representatives from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) were to represent the country. Just a day before his departure for France, the adviser had returned from a weeklong visit of Europe where he had gone to convince the FATF member countries about the actions that Islamabad has taken to r...

Finanacial Express, R Ravichandran, Feb20, 2018 The crunch in domestic availability of Carbon Black has reached such an extent that several domestic tyre companies have been forced to take unplanned shutdowns in the recent past for want of this essential raw material. Alarmed over the crisis, industry body Automotive Tyre Manufacturers Association (ATMA) has represented the case to the union ministry of commerce & industry, asking for facilitating easy import of the raw material to ride out the difficult phase, which is having an adverse impact on tyre production. According to ATMA, factors that have led to the domestic deficit in Carbon Black include a mismatch in capacity addition by the domestic industry in comparison with growing demand from domestic tyre makers and increased exports by the carbon black manufacturers. Domestic demand-supply gap in carbon black, which was 14% in FY17, has gone up to 20% in FY18.Though the estimated overall production of Carbon Black for ...

Financial Express, Rajesh Ravi, Feb 20, 2018 Jeera prices are under pressure on reports of higher production and arrivals in the terminal market.The market is likely to remain bearish until some support is seen in the form of export orders, traders said. India is the world’s largest producer and consumer of jeera. While India consumes 75-80% of the commodity produced, the other producing countries export most of the production. Sunand Subramaniam of Kotak Commodities told FE that the market will be under pressure on higher production and consequent higher arrivals in the market. “Production is estimated to be higher by 35-40% than last year with both Gujarat and Rajasthan reporting increase in acreage. The climate was also conducive and the output is likely to be high. Arrivals are as high as 18,000-20,000 bags per day from Gujarat. More jeera will come into the market when harvest starts in Rajasthan,” he added. Angel Broking reports that the jeera may trade sideways to do...

The Hindu, Feb 19, 2018 A clinical trial has provided encouraging new evidence that TB vaccines can prevent sustained infections in high-risk adolescents. The results will be announced on Tuesday at the 5th Global Forum on TB Vaccines in New Delhi. Subunit vaccine In the Phase 2 trial conducted in South Africa, revaccination with the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine significantly reduced sustained TB infections in adolescents. An experimental vaccine candidate, H4:IC31, also reduced sustained infections, although not at statistically significant levels. However, the trend observed for H4:IC31 is the first time a subunit vaccine has shown any indication of ability to protect against TB infection. The study was conducted to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of the vaccine regimens, as well as their ability to prevent initial and sustained TB infections among healthy adolescents in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. Ann Ginsberg, MD, PhD, Chief ...

Financial Express, PTI, Feb 20, 2018 The PNB scam has triggered a top level exodus at Gitanjali Gems, with board member S Krishnan saying that there was no one to even organise a board meeting to clarify the issues surrounding the purported fraud. While compliance officer Pankhuri Warange said there is a “sense of fear and uncertainty” among the employees in the company and there is an “absolute cluelessness” from the senior management, forcing her to quit. She also cited resignation of chief financial officer Chandrakant karkare and others from the company. In the regulatory filings, Warange also mentioned that the board meeting and quarterly results disclosure, which was scheduled on February 14, had to be postponed as there was “no guideline” from the senior management. Gitanjali Gems could not respond to queries raised by the regulator over media speculations pertaining to the company because officials were engaged with the investigating agencies, she said. “The regulators ...

Financial Express, PTI, Feb 19, 2018 Top actor Kamal Haasan, who is all set to launch his political innings on February 21, today expressed confidence that he would succeed with his Dravidian brand of politics. “You will know when I make it a success,” he told reporters when asked about the presence of Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu and how he could succeed with the same ideology. The top actor has time and again expressed his appreciation of the Dravidian ideology. Last month, he had batted for unity among Southern states under the “Dravidian” tag to leverage ties with the Centre. “It (Dravidian) is our identity, and it will give the southern states a leverage with the Centre,” the actor had said. The Chief Ministers of all southern states –Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh– were all ‘Dravidians,’ and there was no need to stake claim that only Tamilian was ‘Dravidian.’ When the Dravidian identity is “celebrated” across South India, it would lead to a united “ch...

Financial Express, Manisha Singhal,  Feb 20, 2018 Investor duo Anil Chawla and Pramod Bhasin are in the final stages of stitching together a Rs 1,000-crore domestic Alternate Investment Fund (AIF) for investing in distressed assets, sources with direct knowledge of the fund-raising exercise said. The money is being raised from the domestic market.“The proposal for AIF is with the Indian market regulator Sebi for approval and the fund is likely to be launched in the next financial year,” a source said, adding that the hiring for the fund is currently on. Both Bhasin and Chawla trace their partnership back to their GE days when Bhasin was the chief executive of BPO major Genpact and Chawla was heading the GE commercial finance business. GE gradually wound up its commercial finance portfolio in India and Chawla moved to head India operations of hedge fund DE Shaw. Later in 2016, with the backing of private equity player AION, (jointly run by Apollo Global and ICICI Ven...