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Written by Ayesha Siddiqa | Updated: June 2, 2018 12:16:07 am The conversation between former head of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) A S Dulat and retired director-general of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Lt General Asad Durrani has created a storm in a teacup. There is talk about revelations and confessions, as if both gentlemen said entirely new things. That is neither true nor was it the apparent purpose of the book. For instance, Dulat’s discussion on Kashmir is not new. He is an old Kashmir hand advising Delhi to seek an out-of-the-box solution to the issue for a long time. As for Durrani, it is well known that he would rather make conciliatory moves towards India than the US. However, Spy Chronicles is interesting for the fact that two retired practitioners are selling the idea of people investing in Track II initiatives, and for New Delhi to directly talk to Pakistan. The book is an intelligently edited transcript of a conversation between two form...

Written by Surjit S Bhalla | Updated: June 2, 2018 5:11:09 am No one envies the MPC members for their extended three day bi-monthly meeting from June 4 to June 6. The hawks are out in droves; the doves would rather forget this spring of discontent. It was, what, just seven weeks ago, after the April 7 MPC meeting, that the cry went out from the ramparts of the RBI — no rate hikes as far as the eye can see. We all hung up our inflation boots and celebrated the oncoming summer lull. For all of two weeks. On April 21, the same MPC that had lowered inflation forecasts for the first half of the fiscal year by 45 basis points — from a 5.1-5.6 per cent average to 4.7-5.1 per cent for fiscal year (FY) headline inflation (H1) — now revealed that in its deliberations it had actually “felt” the opposite. In particular, one MPC member, Viral Acharya, more or less declared the rebirth of accelerating inflation in India, something his colleague Michael Patra, has been warning about since h...

Written by Khaled Ahmed | Updated: June 2, 2018 12:46:01 am We don’t know how the United Nations’ 6th World Happiness Report calculated that Pakistan is ahead of India, China, Iran, and Afghanistan on the ranking table of happiness. But ask anyone on the Pakistani street and you will be hit with more unhappiness than anywhere in South Asia. If you watch the TV channels in the region, the lack of joy in Pakistan will overwhelm you. And “unhappy India”, killing innocent Pakistanis across the LoC and harassing Pakistani diplomats in New Delhi through its secret agents, adds to this suffering. The world is actually enjoying all this secretly. After the recent Senate elections, Pakistani media succumbed to depravity as Pakistani politicians go for each other’s throat and the establishment herds them around at will as the “rejoicing third party”. This unnamed party is pulling the political rug from under the feet of the dysfunctional state and is set to booby-trap the June general ...

Written by Harish Damodaran | Updated: June 3, 2018 7:06:20 am The result in the Kairana Lok Sabha seat bypoll, where ganna payment was the main issue, brought forth a crisis born of advances in plant breeding and boost in sugarcane production. Not many would have heard of Bakshi Ram. Currently director of the Sugarcane Breeding Institute (SBI) at Coimbatore, he isn’t as well-known as Norman Borlaug or M S Swaminathan. Yet, the wonder sugarcane variety, Co-0238, bred by him has sparked no less a revolution, particularly in Uttar Pradesh’s (UP) ganna heartland. It is probably also a reason for the present crisis in sugar — that of overproduction and India becoming “permanently surplus” in the sweetener. In the 2012-13 crushing season (October-September), UP farmers grew cane on 24.24 lakh hectares (lh) and its mills produced 74.85 lakh tonnes (lt) of sugar. In the current 2017-18 season, the cane area is only 22.99 lh, but production of sugar by UP mills has already hit 11...

By Entertainment Desk, June 2, 2018 Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Mohammad bin Salman has received a warning from extremist group al Qaeda, who has deemed his efforts to liberalise the conservative kingdom as “sinful”, reported Independent. “The new era of [Mohammad bin Salman] replaced mosques with movie theatres,” the Yemen-based al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) said in a statement. The group went on to condemn the prince for the Western “absurdities” which have “opened the door wide for corruption and moral degradation”. Prince Salman, who was given his title by his father King Salman a year ago, has shocked the Saudi society by instigating wide-ranging social and economic reforms. Cinemas have reopened, the country’s long-standing driving ban for women is due to end later this month and the prince has even publicly criticised Saudi’s religious establishment as out of touch with the times, promising to return to a more “moderate Islam”. However, al Qa...

Monday, 04 Jun, 6.48 am Security forces have warned of a rise in recruitment of local youths into terrorist groups in Jammu and Kashmir. The security agency officials said the highly-volatile Shopian and Pulwama districts in South Kashmir continued to contribute more youths to terrorist groups which included outfits like ISIS-Kashmir and Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind, a group which claims support of the Al-Qaeda. As many as 20 more youth have joined terror groups in the month of May which included Rouf from Ganderbal, a fourth-semester student pursuing a diploma course in government polytechnic, the officials said. A Unani doctor, Shams-Ul-Haq Mengnoo, who is the brother of an IPS officer, Inam Ul-Haq-Mengnoo, has also been reported missing from Shopian and it is said that he may have joined terror groups, they said, adding that the figure at the end of April this year was 45. The officials said another 16 were missing mainly from the twin districts and a probe was on to asce...

Suhasini Haidar 02 JUNE 2018 23:18 IST Reports point to crucial role of friends and social media rather than IS or religious ideology When Hizbul Mujahideen militant Rauf Khanday, 21, from a village in Anantnag was killed in March 2018, thousands attended his funeral, and the footage was streamed across social media in Kashmir. Amongst those watching was Zubair Ahmad Wani, who lived just a kilometre away from Khanday’s home, and had known him well. Wani, an M.Phil student in political science at a university in Madhya Pradesh, said not a word at the funeral, according to his family. But three weeks later, Wani, who was not known to have expressed a desire for militancy ever before, took up the gun. Changing profile The cases of both Khanday, who, too, had given no inkling that he would join militancy, and Wani are evidence in studies that show that extremist ideology and pan-Islamic discourse have much less to do with the recruitment of militants in the latest rou...

Saturday, 02 Jun, 10.18 pm  Against the back drop of Nipah virus outbreak in Kerala, Saudi Arabia has banned import of fruits and vegetables from Kerala. The Environmental Ministry issued an order in this regard on Saturday. The ministry gave instructions to related departments to implement the order at the earliest. Saudi Arabia does large-scale import of fruits and vegetables from Kerala. The ban is expected to affect the economy of Kerala. Reference https://m.dailyhunt.in/news/india/english/kaumudiglobal-epaper-kglobal/nipah+virus+saudi+bans+fruits+vegetables+from+kerala-newsid-89230658?ss=wsp&s=a

Press Trust of India | Updated: June 02, 2018 23:01 IST Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed's Jamaat-ud Dawa will contest the July 25 general elections on the platform of Allaha-u-Akbar Tehreek as the group's Milli Muslim League is yet to be registered as a political party, a senior member of the outfit said today. Jamaat-ud-Dawah (JuD), a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group that carried out the deadly 2008 Mumbai attack, launched its political front Milli Muslim League, but it has not been yet registered by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP). With general elections approaching, the group has decided to contest on the platform of the "dormant" political entity Allaha-u-Akbar Tehreek (AAT), which was registered in the ECP. "It was a kind of dormant party registered by a citizen Ehsan. There are several such parties registered with the ECP and such an arrangement is made ahead of the general elections if any mainstream party o...

By Zafar BhuttaPublished: June 3, 2018  In a major breakthrough, Pakistan and Russia are poised to sign a $10-billion offshore gas pipeline deal, a project planned by the latter to capture the energy market of Pakistan. Sources told The Express Tribune that the cabinet had approved the signing of the gas pipeline laying deal and Pakistan ambassador to Russia had been authorised to ink a memorandum of understanding with Moscow. The envoy is likely to ink the understanding in Moscow on Monday. Final cost of the project will be assessed following a feasibility study to be conducted by Russian energy giant Gazprom. Russia has nominated Public Joint Stock Company Gazprom for implementation of the project. Pakistan’s cabinet has also permitted the company to conduct the feasibility study at its own cost and risk. One-week deadline: Sindh warns cutting off gas supply to country Inter State Gas Systems (ISGS) – a state-owned company of Pakistan established to hand...

Rini Sharma, June 1, 2018 1:14 PM  Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday launched an Online Analytical Tool to facilitate closer monitoring of the flow and utilisation of foreign contributions received by various organisations registered or permitted under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010. This web-based tool enables decision-makers in various Departments of Government to scrutinise source of foreign funds and their actual use in India. It gives them capacity to take data-driven and evidence-based decisions regarding the compliance of the provisions of the FCRA, 2010. It has analytical features to conduct big data mining and data exploration. Its dashboard will be integrated with the bank accounts of the FCRA-registered entities through the Public Financial Management System for updation of transactional data on a real-time basis. Home Minister witnessed a presentation on various aspects of the Analytical Tool and appreciated the painstaking work done by...

FOX44, WASHINGTON, D.C. Jun 02, 2018 06:27 PM  The Internal Revenue Service would like the public to be on guard for various summer scams.  Tax season is over, but that won't stop scammers from trying to get your Social Security numbers, account information or passwords. Taxpayers are typically waiting to hear from the IRS at this time of year and the tax collecting organization said that anyone who receives what they believe is a scam call, "should hang up and initiate correspondence with the agency that is purportedly inquiring about their account using a well-known phone number or email address." The IRS provided helpful information about phone scams, e-mail phishing scams and telltale signs that someone is trying to scam you, Phone scams: The IRS does not call and leave pre-recorded, urgent messages asking for a call back. In this tactic, the victim is told if they do not call back, a warrant will be issued for their arrest. Other variations ...

J.P. YADAV, Jun 03, 2018 00:00  The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's economic and labour outfits on Saturday asked the government not to approve the Walmart-Flipkart deal and declared war on e-commerce websites, claiming that most of them followed a "cash burning" model that was against the country's interest. "Government departments cannot allow the Walmart-Flipkart deal to go through," Swadeshi Jagran Manch national convener Ashwani Mahajan said. "We are not against e-commerce but platforms that are engaged in the cash burning model cannot be allowed to run. They are trying to capture the Indian market to finish off our domestic businesses, farmers, etc," he declared. Walmart Inc, the Arkansas-based retailing behemoth, last month announced a deal to acquire 77 per cent stake in Flipkart, an Indian e-commerce giant. The RSS affiliates said the deal was illegal and accused Walmart of trying to capture the Indian market through th...

Written by Vikram S Mehta, Updated: June 4, 2018 1:51:38 am The Indian Companies Act (2013) mandates that Indian corporates, public and private, must allocate at least 2 per cent of their net profits for CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility). The Act defines broadly the social framework within which companies should spend their CSR, CSR funds but beyond that, companies have the freedom to identify the projects and determine the modalities of implementation. The Act was gazetted in 2014 and since then, according to the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), companies have spent Rs 5,922 crore, Rs 7,549 crore and Rs 8,446 crore in 2014, 2015 and 2016 respectively on eligible CSR activities. This is not an insignificant amount but the question does arise: Is the current individualistic model with every company doing its own thing, the optimal model for the utilisation of these statutorily sequestered funds? There are three reasons for asking this question. One, corporates have...