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DAWN April 02, 2018 THE statement by the National Counter Terrorism Authority chief, Ihsan Ghani, at a news conference on Friday that the militant Islamic State group poses a real threat to Pakistan comes as no surprise to anyone watching regional developments. The growing presence of IS in Afghanistan, he said, is bound to have spillover effects in this country.  That is a logical inference; violent extremism does not adhere to geographical boundaries. Indeed one can argue that IS already has a presence here. Several acts of terrorism in recent years have been claimed by the group. Among them are the church bombing in Quetta a few days before Christmas last year; the bombing of several shrines including that of Shah Noorani in Balochistan and Lal Shahbaz Qalandar in Sindh; the kidnapping and murder of two Chinese nationals in Quetta, etc. There is also reason to fear that IS-affiliated Pakistani militants returning from the Syrian civil war could unleash furthe...

DAWN April 02, 2018 Ali Waqar The Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan, Ajay Bisaria, on Friday stressed the need to improve trade ties between the two neighbouring nations while addressing an event at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI). Bisaria's statement comes at a time when relations between the two nuclear neighbours are at a low amid heightened tensions because of the latest incidents of harassment of Pakistani diplomats in India. A Pakistani delegation is also currently visiting India to discuss water issues. The top Indian diplomat told the audience today that traders on both sides of the Indo-Pak border face visa issues which is among the reasons why the two sides have failed to actualise the potential $30 billion trade mark estimated by the World Bank. Trade volume through a third country is greater while direct trade between India and Pakistan stands at only $2.2bn, Bisaria noted. He stressed that the two sides will have to work ...

The Express Tribune April 02, 2018 Dr. Raza Khan  In Pakistan, the extremism propagated and terrorism perpetrated in the name of religion have had many linkages with education and educational institutions in the country. However, the linkages between education and extremism-terrorism are somewhat very strange. Education and institutions which impart knowledge most often than not in any society and country serve as instruments of civilisation, modernisation and thus, peace and stability. Moreover, educational institutions and teachers by purposefully spreading knowledge prevent the nurturing of radical tendencies and extremist social attitudes. However, in Pakistan educational institutions have instead been contributing to the rise and proliferation of extremism and terrorism. With regard to extremism and terrorism in the name of religion, the focus of scholarship and government has been on the role of militant madrassas. But the very point, why such a large number of ...

The Express Tribune April 02, 2018 DUBAI: Bahrain on Sunday announced it has discovered the largest oil and gas field in the history of the small kingdom, which unlike its Gulf neighbours is not energy-rich. Authorities estimate the newfound reserves at “many times” the volume of Bahrain’s only other known oil field, the state-run BNA news agency said. BNA did not give details on the size of the new light shale oil and gas find or on the expected date of the start of production.  Manama is the smallest producer of hydrocarbons in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which also groups Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Bahrain currently has only one oilfield with several hundred million barrels of crude reserves. The field was the first to be discovered in the Gulf and the first to start production. It currently pumps around 50,000 barrels per day (bpd), in addition to over one billion cubic feet (28 million cubic metres) o...

Financial Express April 02, 2018 Shamik Paul Banks have drawn up a third list of corporate defaulters to be referred to the NCLT for resolution under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC), senior bankers said. Banks have drawn up a third list of corporate defaulters to be referred to the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) for resolution under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC), senior bankers told FE. Most of the 25-30 companies on the third list are those where the aggregate exposure of the lenders is more than Rs 2,000 crore, and where there is little possibility of resolution through restructuring outside the NCLT. “We have identified these accounts after the Reserve Bank of India notice and we want to refer them to the NCLT as early as April,” a senior banker with a large state-run bank said on condition of anonymity. “We have identified around 25-30 accounts as terminally ill and want to refer these to the NCLT so that we can recover ou...

The Indian Express April 02, 2018 Pranav Mukul Data sourced from Chennai-based research firm Venture Intelligence shows that a total $3.4 billion has been injected into hospitals by PE investors from 2007 till 2017. The deal between Fortis Healthcare and Manipal Health Enterprises — which is backed by private equity (PE) investor TPG Capital — may well be valued at over $2 billion making it the biggest investment in a hospitals chain involving a PE firm. Data sourced from Chennai-based research firm Venture Intelligence shows that a total $3.4 billion has been injected into hospitals by PE investors from 2007 till 2017. Notably, almost half of the investment during the period came via 10 transactions. Prior to the Fortis deal, the largest one was in early 2016, when Dubai-headquartered Abraaj Group bought controlling stake in Hyderabad-based CARE Hospitals for around $221 million. International Finance Corporation (IFC) has been the most active investor with 10 de...

The Indian Express April 02, 2018 Anisha George Supreme Court ruling adding procedural safeguards for accused under SC/ST Atrocities Act shows that judiciary needs to be sensitised to the operation of caste in Indian society. In November 1995, while dismissing Bhanwari Devi’s plea for justice, the district sessions judge remarked that the upper-caste men (the five accused included a Brahmin and the rest Gujjars) could not have raped a Dalit woman at the cost of defiling their caste purity. Twenty-two years later, the Indian judiciary’s caste blindness shows little sign of ebbing. Last month, the Supreme Court (SC), no less, tightened the provisions concerning registration of cases under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, seemingly to avoid “instances of abuse” of the law by “vested interests”. This comes in the wake of the sinister Bhima Koregaon violence in Maharashtra less than three months ago. The SC ruling in Subhash K...

The Economic Times April 02, 2018 NEW DELHI: Increasingly, the world wants to shut the door on Indian professionals, especially the tech workers, who want to work in foreign countries. From today, the US has tightened the process to award H1-B visas. Given to highly skilled professionals to work in the US, the H1-B visas fuelled the growth of India's information technology companies over more than a decade. Now the visas will turn precious, with unprecedented scrutiny and zero tolerance for even minor errors. In addition to this , all visa applicants will be subjected to extreme social-media vetting.   Earlier in March, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services had announced that it would temporarily suspend the premium processing for the H-1B visa. The Donald Trump administration recently announced a new measure, making the approval of H-1B visa tougher. Any company will have to make one more clarification to prove that its H-1B employee at a third-party w...

The Hindu April 02, 2018 At least nine persons were killed and hundreds injured on Monday in violence across several States during a nationwide bandh against the alleged dilution of The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Six persons were killed in Madhya Pradesh, two in Uttar Pradesh and one in Rajasthan as Dalit groups staged violent protests across north India against a Supreme Court judgment they claimed weakened protections available to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. The Supreme Court had ruled on March 20 that the anti-atrocities law had become an instrument to blackmail innocent citizens and had issued a slew of guidelines against arbitrary arrests. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh said he was “deeply pained” by the loss of lives and reiterated that the Centre was committed to ensuring the welfare of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. “Six people — three in Gwalior district, two in Bhind d...

The Economics Times  April 02, 2018 Saubhik Chakrabarti  So, if we are to believe loud political rhetoric and even louder news television programmes, some people, including ‘foreigners’, armed with ‘sophisticated digital technology’ have subverted and/or will subvert India’s democracy.  Rubbish. The big data/subverted elections claim is as fundamentally flawed as Congress’ and other Opposition parties’ claim on rigged electronic voting machines (EVMs). Let’s rescue some key facts from the blizzard of political and media sound bites.  First, the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica (CA) controversy is about user privacy and dodgy ways of collecting personal data. That’s a matter of policy regulation, not electoral process. Whether tech giants that depend on advertising revenue generated by loose privacy controls can find another business model, if regulation makes data hoovering tough, is a crucial question. But that’s not related directly to elections....

The Indian Express April 02, 2018 China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said it was suspending its obligations to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to reduce tariffs on 120 US goods, including fruit. China has slapped extra tariffs of up to 25 per cent on 128 US products, including frozen pork, as well as on wine and certain fruits and nuts, in response to US duties on imports of aluminium and steel, China’s finance ministry said. The tariffs, to take effect on Monday, were announced late on Sunday and match a list of potential tariffs on up to $3 billion in US goods published by China on March 23 . China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) said it was suspending its obligations to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to reduce tariffs on 120 US goods, including fruit. The tariffs on those products will be raised by an extra 15 per cent. Eight other products, including pork, will now be subject to additional tariffs of 25 percent, it said, with the measures effective fro...

The Indian Express April 02, 2018 While I&B Minister Smriti Irani said that both these bodies were not “regulated/operated” by the government, her Ministry’s statement was the one that defined the punishment and left both the definition of fake news and the nature of the complaint open-ended. IN an unprecedented move in an election year, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has amended guidelines for journalists’ accreditation stating that if a journalist is found to have “created and/or propagated” fake news, the journalist’s accreditation will be suspended or permanently cancelled. In a press release issued Monday evening, it said that the Press Council of India and News Broadcasters Association (NBA), the two regulatory bodies for print and television media respectively, will determine whether the news is fake or not. While I&B Minister Smriti Irani said that both these bodies were not “regulated/operated” by the government, her Ministry’s statement ...

The Times of India  April 02, 2018 Poovulagin Nanbargal, the environmental organisation which went to the National Green Tribunal against the India-based Neutrino Laboratory (INO), has decided to appeal against the project again while continuing to frequent the villages in the proposed site and create awareness. Speaking to TOI, co-ordinator of the NGO, G Sundarrajan explains why they are against the project. The explosives used to create the laboratory will have very dangerous consequences for the Western Ghats where all life forms exist. Why endanger an entire eco system and also destroy a charnockite rock which is older than all forms of life itself. How does the project endanger the region? We all know that the roads caved in at Anna Salai in Chennai due to the metro project. This occurred months after the work on the project was completed in the area. So there is no time frame for the after-effects. In the metro project they used tunnelling machines, whereas ...

Entrackr April 02, 2018 Jitendra Singh The digital cryptocurrency Bitcoin, that hogged limelight last year for its unprecedented rise, has now almost died down. While it was rising many made fortune whereas many others who waited or missed the opportunity are still in confusion about its future prospects. The ebb and flow in the value of the cryptocurrency has raised many questions. Is it a bubble? Why does it have limited supply? Will it rise or burst? Can it be means of payment and a facilitator of exchange? Will it be a good store of value? Even though there is confusion about cryptocurrency, there seems to be an air of certainty about the usefulness of technology behind cryptocurrency, Blockchain. It is a technology that allows information to be stored and exchanged by a network of computers without any central authority. It is collectively maintained by a network of computers called nodes. The system is considered safe as no data in it can be changed by anyon...

Live Mint  April 02, 2018 The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked Axis Bank’s board to re-consider the decision to re-appoint Shikha Sharma as its managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) for a fourth term, amid concerns over rising bad loans at the country’s third largest private sector lender, people in the know said. The move comes against the backdrop of persisting concerns over mounting non-performing assets (NPAs) in the banking system. People in the know said the RBI has shot off a letter to the chairman of Axis Bank Sanjiv Misra, who is also a former expenditure secretary, with regard to the board’s decision to re-appoint Sharma. The bank’s board has been asked to re-consider the decision to give a fourth three-year term for Sharma as managing director and CEO, the people in the know said. According to them, the RBI’s letter has also cited the bank’s performance and deteriorating asset quality condition over the years. In July 2017, the boar...