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Firstpost March 04, 2018 It appears Nirav Modi and Vijay Mallya are not the only fraudsters who have successfully managed to flee the country. Since 2015, there are hundreds of cases of financial scams registered with the Economic Offences Wing (EOW), Mumbai. According to information obtained by activist Jeetendra Ghadge through RTI request, 184 of the people accused in those scams are absconding. In 2015, 105 cases were registered with the EOW. The number was at 119 in 2016, and in 2017, it was 109. Out of which, 73 cases of 2015 remain under investigation. As many as 103 from 2016 and 107 cases from 2017 are still under investigation. The EOW usually looks into high-profile swindlers because it investigates scams only over Rs 50 lakh. The total amount involved in cases for last three years are: Rs 5,560 crore in 2015, Rs 4,273 crore in 2016, and in 2017, it is 9,835 crore. In all, it is a whopping Rs 19,668 crore in three years. However, the refund investors have received...

Financial Express March 05, 2018 Digital divide is the stark reality in a country like India and this is accentuated in a segment like healthcare where citizens in metro cities have the access to best of the medical services while those in rural or remote locations suffer from the lack of dependable healthcare services. In a drive towards bringing the best of healthcare services to people staying in rural areas, Jayakishor Banja has launched his start-up called HealthBot. In a market where there are numerous healthcare start-ups, Banja has ensured a differentiation with the creation of a technology platform which is simple to use while effective in delivering the services. “We have developed an Internet of Things (IoT) collaboration platform where we are able to seamlessly connect the doctors with the patients,” said Banja. HealthBot has positioned itself as a care management firm where there is greater degree of personalisation unlike other platforms which act largely as a...

The Telegraph March 05, 2018 Public sector banks have written off loans worth Rs 516 crore owed by wilful defaulters in the first half of the current fiscal, according to data collated by the finance ministry. As part of this exercise, 38 loan accounts of wilful defaulters were written off the books of banks during the April-September period of 2017-18, the ministry said. Write-off in banking parlance means that the bank has made 100 per cent provision from its earning against that account. Following this, the non-performing asset (NPA) is no longer part of its balance sheet. However, the write-off puts pressure on banks as it erodes their operating profit. As recovery in the case of wilful default is very remote, so the possibility of write-back in the future is also very little, said a senior bank official. A wilful defaulter is somebody who has essentially not used the fund for the purpose it has been borrowed or he has not repaid when he can do so; he has siphoned o...

The Telegraph March 05, 2018 Amid the ongoing multi-agency probe into the Rs 12,700-crore Punjab National Bank scam, the NCLT has restrained more than 60 entities, including Nirav Modi, Mehul Choksi, various individuals, companies and limited liability partnership firms, from selling their assets. The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) have passed the directions against Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi, the alleged main perpetrators of the fraud, as well as their firms and relatives, among other entities, according to a public announcement by the corporate affairs ministry. The ex parte order (in the interest of one party only) was passed on a petition filed by the ministry under various sections of the Companies Act, 2013. The ministry moved the petition under various provisions such as section 221, which pertains to freezing of assets of company on inquiry and investigation, and section 222 that relates to the imposition of restrictions upon securities. It has been passed ...

Times of India March 05, 2018  The  income tax department   has unearthed a Rs 3,200 crore scam where 447 companies deducted tax from its employees but did not deposit with the government and diverted to further their business interests. The TDS wing of the I-T has initiated prosecution against these firms and in some cases, warrants have been issued, sources said. Under the  Income Tax Act , the offences attract a minimum punishment of rigorous imprisonment of three months to a maximum of seven years with fine. Prosecution is initiated under Section 276 B. I-T is contemplating adding IPC Sections of cheating and criminal breach of trust as this act amounts to duping its employees, sources said. The offenders mainly include builders with one of them, a leading and politically connected, diverting Rs 100 crore collected from his employees for business purposes. The others are from various sectors including movie production houses, infrastructure...

The Indian Express March 05, 2018 THE CBI has recovered from a Mumbai chawl “six sacks” of documents allegedly linked to applications made by firms of jewellers,  Nirav Modi  and Mehul Choksi, to raise Letters of Undertaking (LoUs) and Foreign Letters of Credits (FLCs) from Punjab National Bank, sources told The Indian Express. The documents recovered from a room in Wadala include originals and photocopies of applications of over 1,000 LoUs and LCs raised by the bank for firms linked to Modi and Choksi, who are at the centre of a probe into alleged fraud of over Rs 12,700 crore, said sources. According to an official linked to the investigation, one of the arrested accused — Gokulnath Shetty, a former deputy manager of PNB — was shown the discovery. “When these documents were shown to Shetty, he said they were applications pertaining to LoUs and LCs. He allegedly revealed that to prevent the bank from detecting any irregularity, both originals and photocopies were ...

The Indian Express March 05, 2018 China on Sunday insisted it had no interest in overthrowing the existing world order and that it did not want trade war with the US amid rising tensions between two of the world’s largest economies. “But if the US takes steps to hurt our interest, we will not sit idle,” said Zhang Yesui, the spokesman for 13th National People’s Congress (NPC)’s first session, which will begin Monday. Zhang, who is also Vice Foreign Minister, called cooperation the only right option for China and the US. He said the two countries had agreed to talk on economic issues for greater cooperation. “It’s imperative for two countries to perceive each other’s strategic intentions objectively and accurately. Policies formed by misjudgment or wrong presumption will hurt the relations and bring about consequences neither side wants to see,” he said a week after president Donald Trump threatened to levy tariffs on steel and aluminum imports. China has been critical of ...

The Economic Times March 05, 2018 US President Donald Trump’s proposed policy on steel, of which his country is the planet’s biggest importer, may cause a supply glut in India, with shipments originally bound for   Washington likely to end up at seaports of the world’s fastest-expanding major economy if they  can’t hurdle across the American tariff walls. To ensure that the current cycle of recovery at the country’s largest makers of the alloy is unaffected, New Delhi may need to re-look at the anti-dumping charges. The minimum import  prices for steel products introduced last year are way below the current market rates, and may  prove ineffective in margin protection for local producers. Domestic steel prices are about 5% lower. India is a net exporter of steel, with net outbound shipments of around 3 MT. It was a net importer two years ago before the government introduced the protective measures. Without any government support, that s...

The Economic Times March 05, 2018 State Bank of India has decided against funding interest during construction, a move  that could spell further trouble for companies seeking project finance from the nation’s largest  lender as they cannot keep interest payment pending until projects start generating revenue. The  decision is aimed at de-risking the bank’s loan book, SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar told ET. In infrastructure loans, the repayment period is usually long and the chances of the work getting  stuck is high. Much of the Rs 8-lakh-crore nonperforming assets that the country’s lenders are  sitting on are in the infrastructure sector. While staying away from funding interest during  construction could cripple the fund flow to the infrastructure sector that is key to the efforts to  boost economic growth, public sector banks are more focused on lessening the risk of bad loans. In fact, most banks have become averse to funding infrastructu...

The Economic Times March 04, 2018 The forward-looking approach adopted by India and China after the Doklam standoff could see  top leaders from Beijing visiting Delhi this year. Senior officials here don’t rule out a trip to India  by Chinese President Xi Jinping or Premier Li Keqiang. With Prime Minister Narendra Modi set to visit China in June for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit — his fourth visit to the neighbouring country since 2015 — it is widely expected that a top leader from China could also visit India this year, people familiar with  the developments said. ET had first reported that Modi would visit China for the SCO Summit. While the PM was in China on a bilateral trip in 2015, it was the G-20 Summit that took him there in 2016, followed by  the BRICS Summit last year. Xi visited India once as President, in September 2014. The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank  meet to be held in Mumbai in May would als...

The Economic Times March 04, 2018 American diesel engine maker Cummins Inc, which over the weekend opened its largest technical centre in Pune at an investment of Rs 1,500 crore, has termed the tax on intellectual property (IP) as a big "disincentive", even though it is bullish on India.  American diesel engine maker Cummins Inc, which over the weekend opened its largest technical centre in Pune at an investment of Rs 1,500 crore, has termed the tax on intellectual property (IP) as a big "disincentive", even though it is bullish on India. The American diesel engine specialist, which is celebrating 100 years, has been operating in the  country for the 50-plus years. As a group, it collectively operates 21 manufacturing facilities in the  country employing over 10,000. "There are lots of complicated taxes in India. One such levy is the tax imposed on IP. We generate many IPs here in India and we use them in other markets as well. But ...