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THE INDIAN EXPRESS May 22, 2018 A two-member bench, headed by NCLAT chairman Justice SJ Mukhopadhaya, issued notices to Tata Steel, the resolution professional and committee of creditors (CoC) of the company, and asked them to reply within a week. The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on Monday refused to stay Tata Steel’s acquisition of debt-laden Bhushan Steel under the corporate insolvency resolution process though it admitted promoter Neeraj Singal’s plea challenging the entire resolution process and the sale. Singal, who had around 22 per cent stake in the company as on March-end, also said that Tata Steel was not eligible to bid under section 29 (A) (d) of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) that bars a company convicted for any offense punishable with imprisonment for two years and more. He alleged that Tata Steel UK attracts disqualification as it has been found guilty on two counts, by a February 2 order, under the Health and Safety at Work A...

THE INDIAN EXPRESS May 22, 2018 Charting out the country’s economic trajectory, the first Economic Survey (FY15) of the Narendra Modi government released in February, 2015, asserted that India had “reached a sweet spot—rare in the history of nations — in which it could finally be launched on a double-digit medium-term growth trajectory,” pegging its optimism on the “strong political mandate for economic change” backed by stable macro economy and benign external environment. While a double-digit growth remains elusive at present, the economy has been limping back from the low 5.7 per cent growth rate recorded in the first quarter of FY18, the lowest by the Modi government so far. For FY18, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is estimated to grow at 6.6 per cent, as per the second advance estimate of the Central Statistics Office. Despite a series of economic tailwinds such as low crude oil prices, stable currency and favourable monsoon during much of the four years of the gover...

THE HINDU  May 22, 2018 Britain is determined to tackle the problem of illicit money flows, a spokesman for Prime Minister Theresa May said on Monday, after a report by lawmakers said Russian money laundered by British financial institutions harms national security. “The UK has taken a leading role in the global fight against illicit finance, and criminals should be in no doubt that we will come for them, their assets and their money,” he told reporters. “We are determined to drive dirty money and the money launderers out of the UK and we will use all the powers we have ... to clamp down on those who threaten our security,” he said adding that since the Proceeds of Crime Act was introduced 2.2 billion pounds ($2.95 billion) has been taken off criminals. Reference:  http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/britain-is-determined-to-tackle-dirty-money-pm-mays-spokesman/article23949965.ece

The Express Tribune May 22, 2018 Minister for Planning and Development Ahsan Iqbal has said India borrowed Pakistan’s economic and reforms plans and implemented them successfully while “we squandered the opportunity largely because of political instability”. Speaking at the inauguration of Pakistan National Centre for Cyber Security in Islamabad on Monday, Iqbal, who also holds the portfolio of interior minister, said during the 90s then Indian finance minister Manmohan Singh borrowed economic reforms strategies from his Pakistani counterpart Sartaj Aziz and successfully implemented them in India. He said Bangladesh also successfully used the same strategies but Pakistan could not put its own plans to use as the decade was lost to political instability. The planning minister said the first opportunity for Pakistan’s economy to take off came in the 60s, the second in the 90s, and the third opportunity is knocking at the doors now, which must not be lost to instabilit...

First Post May 22, 2018 Mumbai: Senior executives at Punjab National Bank misled the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in late 2016 over the lender’s handling of the financial messaging system and credit guarantees that were at the centre of a more than $2 billion fraud, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) alleged in a charge sheet filed in court. PNB, India’s second-largest state-run bank, said earlier this year that two jewellery groups headed by Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi had defrauded it of about $2.2 billion by raising credit from overseas branches of other Indian banks using illegal guarantees issued by rogue PNB staff at a Mumbai branch over several years. The PNB staff allegedly did not make note of the fake guarantees sent via the SWIFT financial messaging system in the bank’s core accounting software, leading to the fraud remaining undetected for years. In 2016, after separate incidents of misuse of the SWIFT system elsewhere, the RBI had repeat...

Freepress Kashmir  May 22, 2018 AS Dulat, the former chief of RAW has said that Indian government should invite Pakistan’s Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa and start the stalled process of talks between the countries, said a report in the Dawn. Speaking to NDTV together with former ISI chief Lt Gen Asad Durrani ahead of the release of their joint book — The Spy Chronicles: RAW, ISI and the Illusion of Peace — Dulat said there was a new inflection in diplomatic and strategic fields across the world. “Who could have thought a few days ago that President Donald Trump would be talking to the North Korean leader? We should also think out of the box, as Dr Manmohan Singh used to say. Roll out the red carpet and invite Gen Bajwa, and see what happens.” Both authors described people-to-people contacts as a low hanging fruit that could be plucked easily, including easing of visas and resumption of cricket ties. Gen Durrani, speaking from his home in Pakistan, said he believe...

Rediff News May 22, 2018 Security agencies have flagged a new strategy of Pakistani personnel wearing 'thermal camouflage suits' to avoid detection by Indian night vision devices, a design adopted by them to kill a Border Security Force jawan along the border in Jammu and Kashmir amid the recent spate of ceasefire violations. The 'disturbing' first-time instance, officials told PTI quoting an electronic surveillance report, has rattled the top commanders responsible for ensuring security at the Indo-Pak International Border and the unfenced Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. Constable Sitaram Yadav, 28, of the 192nd battalion of the BSF, manning a forward post along the IB in the RS Pura region, was shot with a precise close-range aim by either a terrorist or Special Service Group trooper from the Pakistani side at about 1.30 am on May 18, they said. Official sources said a grievously injured Yadav was immediately evacuated by two other BSF jawans...

Business Times May 22, 2018 Google Project Zero (GPZ) security researchers, earlier in the year detected a dangerous security flaw Spectre and Meltdown in Intel, AMD, ARM chipsets found in almost every PC in the world. All the concerned parties soon released the security patch and the operation is still ongoing as the flaw affects massive number brands and several generations of PCs. Now, Intel in collaboration with GPZ and Microsoft's Security Response Center (MSRC) has uncovered a new strain of similar security flaw dubbed as 'Variant 4'. Like the Spectre and Meltdown, the new Variant 4 too, takes advantage of "speculative execution," a technique used by most modern processors (CPUs) to optimise performance. For those unaware, the CPU, in its bid to increase the performance, predicts which path of a branch is most likely to be taken, and will speculatively continue execution down that path even before the branch is completed. If the predictio...

The Economic Times May 22, 2018 Nine persons have been confirmed to have died in a police firing in retaliation to protests that turned violent near the Collector's office in Tuticorin during a demonstration to mark the hundredth day of protests demanding closure of UK-based Vedanta Resources subsidiary Sterlite's copper smelter in Tamil Nadu's southern district. At least thirty others have been injured, N Venkatesh, District Collector, Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu told ET on the phone.  According to sources present at the protest, several thousands had gathered in a show of solidarity against the plant, which had been fined Rs 100 crore for environmental rehabilitation by the Supreme Court in April 2013. The current phase of protests are against a planned 400 ktpa brownfield expansion of the factory.  In a press release from the government, nearly 20,000 protesters had gathered for a rally towards the collector's office. The release also said the protesters ha...

The Express Tribune May 22, 2018 KARACHI: Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed has said that former prime minister Nawaz Sharif has become the biggest non-state actor in Pakistan. Saeed was talking to the media after a meeting with Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Pakistan (JUP) chief Sahibzada Abul Khair Muhammad Zubair in Hyderabad on Monday. “Nawaz has been disqualified by the apex court. After his disqualification he shouldn’t engage in politics,” he said. Saeed said he has been cautioning the Pakistani authorities for many years about India’s intention to block or reduce river water supply to Pakistan. Nawaz Sharif fails to appear before NAB in ‘illegal’ Jati Umra road probe On Saturday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Mondi inaugurated the power plant project on Kishanganga [Neelum] River, which also includes a dam. “Now everyone in the country is saying that India will stop Pakistan’s water, but I feel sad that the people in the saddle preferred to pursue their pers...

SCIENCE Jon Cohen January 18, 2017 A coalition that aims to develop new vaccines for emerging infectious diseases has nearly half a billion dollars in its coffers and its first three diseases in its sights. Over the next 5 years, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) plans to bankroll the development of vaccines against three viral threats—Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS)-coronavirus, Lassa, and Nipah—so that small outbreaks never get a chance to become raging epidemics. Formed last year without serious funding, CEPI has received $100 million commitments from the Wellcome Trust and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the governments of Japan, Germany, and Norway have pledged to contribute an additional $260 million. As Science went to press, CEPI planned to announce the commitments at the World Economic Forum this week in Davos, Switzerland. Epidemiologist John-Arne Røttingen, CEPI's interim president through 2017, says he hope...

Gatesnotes April 27, 2018 Four years ago, the world was stunned by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Panic broke out all over the globe. Governments scrambled to contain the infection. By the time the last patient tested negative for the disease, the outbreak claimed thousands of lives and caused billions of dollars in economic losses. The 2014 Ebola outbreak was a stark reminder of how vulnerable our society is to epidemics of infectious diseases. We weren’t ready then, and we’re still not ready now—but we can be. We don’t know when the next epidemic will strike, but I believe we can protect ourselves if we invest in better tools, a more effective early detection system, and a more robust global response system. When the Massachusetts Medical Society asked me to deliver this year’s Shattuck Lecture, I knew I wanted to talk about epidemic preparedness. I was honored to address their annual meeting earlier today. Here is the full text of my prepared remarks: Remarks as ...

THE WIRE May 22, 2018 Petrol and diesel prices have shot up by Rs. 2.24 and Rs 2.15 a litre respectively since oil marketing companies (OMCs) resumed daily price revision on May 14. New Delhi: The potential return of an under-recovery sharing mechanism is currently looming over upstream oil companies as the Modi government moves to calm simmering public anger over rising auto fuel prices. As petrol and diesel prices hit new highs on Tuesday, media reports, quoting anonymous senior government officials, said that the Centre may come out with “some steps” this week to provide relief to auto fuel consumers. This unnamed official, however, hinted that the government may not cut excise duty which makes up about a fourth of the final price of petrol and diesel. “Rising fuel price is a crisis situation for government and it has to be handled with combination of steps. Finance ministry is consulting the petroleum ministry on rising crude prices,” he told PTI. Petrol...