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The Times of India July 03, 2018 TOI Editorials State-owned life insurer LIC is on its way to buying a majority stake in public sector IDBI Bank. Insurance regulator IRDA has stepped in line, waiving a regulatory ceiling of 15% investment in a company by a life insurer. IDBI is perhaps the worst affected of the banks struggling to deal with mounting bad loans. But LIC’s decision to pick up majority stake by buying out government holdings is hardly the best way to deal with the situation. LIC is a behemoth, the dominant life insurer with extensive financial investments. It holds a stake in over 20 banks and has board positions in some. By increasing its stake in IDBI, where total bad loans as a percentage of advances are 27.95% (compared to an average of 15.6% for public sector banks), it raises many questions. One, this leads to a concentration of risk in the system. Two, it is unclear how LIC is going to contribute to the betterment of IDBI Bank’s governance which is a pre

FIRSTPOST July 03, 2018 PTI IDBI Bank officers have opposed the proposed 51 percent acquisition of the bank's stake by LIC, saying this is a clear move to privatise it, bypassing the assurance given to Parliament. "The subjective move of the Government of India tantamount to reneging on the solemn assurance given by the then Finance Minister of the NDA Government on the floor of Parliament on 8 December, 2003 that post conversion, the government shall at all times, maintain not less than 51 percent of the issued capital of the Company. "This solemn assurance given on the floor of Parliament forms part of the records of the Parliamentary Committee on Assurances formed the very basis for the ultimate passage of the IDBI (Transfer of Undertaking and Repeal) Bill, 2002," All India IDBI Officers' Association General Secretary Vithal Koteswara Rao said in a representation to Union Minister Arun Jaitley. Taking into consideration the fact that the bank h

FIRSTPOST July 03,2018 Seetha In an interview to  Swarajya , Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about his government’s four-pronged strategy to achieve the goal of doubling farmers’ incomes – decreasing input costs, ensuring proper price for produce, minimising post-harvest losses and creating more avenues for income generation. Why then, his critics are quick to scoff, are farmers protesting across the country – taking out long marches or throwing their produce on the streets? Pertinent question, but the answer may not be palatable to them. Certainly not to the opposition parties that make this point. There is certainly no denying that farmers across the country are facing acute stress, but the sins of omission and commission by successive governments are to blame for this. The laundry list of what needs to be done – and not done – is far too well known to bear repeating. Yet, all that should not be done has been done and what absolutely needs to be done has not. Seen

The Indian Express July 04, 2018 Express News Service On Monday, the Punjab Cabinet decided to recommend the death penalty for drug traffickers. Section 31A of the NDPS Act, in fact, already provides for the death penalty to second-time offenders in certain cases. If the first conviction is under Sections 19, 24, and 27A, which deal with various offences relating to drug trafficking, then Section 31A provides for the death penalty if the offender is subsequently convicted of production, manufacture, possession, transport or transshipment of specified drugs, or financing any of these activities. In Punjab itself, a special Narcotics Control Bureau court had awarded the death penalty to Amritsar resident Paramjeet Singh in 2012, for a “subsequent offence” of drug trafficking, before the Punjab & Haryana High Court commuted the sentence to 15 years imprisonment the following year. After the latest Cabinet decision, the Punjab government has clarified that it has demanded t

Deccan Chronicle July 04, 2018 PTI The Union cabinet meeting which was held to decide on Minimum Support Price (MSP) hike of paddy, kharif crops on Wednesday, has decided to double the MSP for paddy what it was last year. The proposed hike is estimated to cost the taxpayers a whopping amount of Rs 15,000 crore annually. The decision, taken by the Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, comes less than a year before next general election. While the BJP had promised in 2014 to give farmers a price of 1.5 times of cost, an announcement to give effect to the promise was made in the government's fifth and final annual Budget presented on February 1 this year. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) at its meeting today approved the MSP of 14 Kharif (summer-sown) crops. The MSP of paddy (common grade) has been increased by Rs 200 to Rs 1,750 per quintal, while that of Grade A variety by Rs 160 per quintal to Rs 1,750. The MSP of paddy (common) was

Daily hunt July 03, 2018 Chandigarh :  Punjab police today said it has busted a gang smuggling heroin with the arrest of four persons including an ex-army man and seized 14.8 kg of heroin. The alleged involvement of a BSF constable posted at the Indo-Pak border in the conspiracy to smuggle heroin from Pakistan has also come to the fore during questioning of suspects, a Punjab police spokesperson said here. In a major crackdown on smuggling of narcotics and weapons from across the border from Pakistan, the Intelligence Wing of the Punjab Police busted a gang of heroin smugglers and arrested four persons, including an ex-Army man, in this connection, he said. Police have seized from the suspects 14.8 kg of heroin, valued approximately Rs 74 crore in the international market, along with one .30 bore Pistol, he said. “The suspects have named one BSF constable posted at the border and two other associates as being involved in the smuggling racket,” the spokesperson said. The

The Express Tribune July 03, 2018 Hasaan Khawar The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has placed Pakistan on the ‘greylist’, because of ‘strategic deficiencies’ in the country’s anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing (AML/CTF) regime. The FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 to combat money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats. FATF maintains two different lists of countries: those that have deficiencies in their AML/CTF regimes but they commit to an action plan to address these loopholes, and those that do not end up doing enough. The former is commonly known as grey list and latter as blacklist. Once a country is blacklisted, FATF calls on other countries to apply enhanced due diligence and counter measures, increasing the cost of doing business with the country and in some cases severing it altogether. As of now there are only two countries in the blacklist — Iran and North Korea — and seven on the grey list, including

Financial Express July 04, 2018 Sandhya Michu Even as farmers in Jaipur district battle long spells of dry weather and erratic power supply, farmer Om Prakash of Nevta village is unperturbed. Thanks to a mobile connected, electrical device called Pluto. Since he brought home the device, the inconvenience of visiting outlying farms during the night just to switch on and off the motorised water pumps and irrigate the fields is a thing of the past. “We are saving 2-3 hours every day with the help of Pluto. Pluto is a simple and smart solution, even my children and wife can operate the pump by calling Pluto from the mobile. The solution gives a respite from walking long distances everyday in the sweltering heat or the biting cold,” says Prakash. A farmer has to call a designated number and after two rings the call is connected. After that, he has to dial 1111 on the keypad to turn the pump on. To turn the pump off, he needs to dial 2222 on the keypad. The device can also send a

Financial Express July 03, 2018 FE Online The Narendra Modi government is planning to define shell companies, which have been the centre of money laundering for a long time in India. Union Minister P P Chaudhary said has said that the government will “very soon” come out with a definition for shell companies amid the crackdown on entities indulging in financial irregularities. It’s a multi-pronged action plan that is being implemented in the fight against the black money menace, the absence of a proper and uniform definition for shell companies under the legal framework is hampering investigations, PTI reported. Obscuring ownership, excessive leveraging, rotation in transactions with no apparent business purpose, majority of shares held by other companies and disproportionate investment in shares of other companies are among the criteria for a shell company. What shell companies are In simpler words, shell companies can be defined as companies tailor made for tax e

Business Standard July 04, 2018 AFP/PTI/San Francisco Facebook acknowledged on Tuesday it was facing multiple inquiries from US and British regulators about the major Cambridge Analytica user data scandal. The leading social network offered no details but its admission confirmed reports of a widening investigation into the misuse of private data by Facebook and its partners. "We are cooperating with officials in the US, UK and beyond," a Facebook spokesman said in response to an AFP query. "We've provided public testimony, answered questions, and pledged to continue our assistance as their work continues." The Washington Post reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Trade Commission and FBI as well as the Justice Department are looking into the massive breach of users' personal data and how the company handled it. ALSO READ: Saavn, Airtel among 61 companies that had access to user data: Facebook Facebook

Swarajya July 03, 2018 Swarajya staff China has decided to provide a loan of $1 billion to Pakistan. It comes at a time when Pakistan has officially been included in the grey list of Financial Action Task Force (FATF)  reported   Asia News International (ANI). The move comes after Pakistan’s foreign exchange reserves dropped to $9.66 billion last week from $16.4 billion in May 2017. With this loan, China’s lending to Pakistan in this financial year ending in June is set to cross $5 billion. FATF is a global body which intends to combat money laundering and terror financing. While taking the decision, FATF is reported to have said that Pakistan has failed to act against terror financing on its soil. During her recent visit to India, United States Ambassador to United Nations Nikki Haley had stated that Pakistan is becoming a safe haven to terrorists. "We share a commitment to defeating terrorism and the hateful ideology that motivates it. The US values Pakis

Outlook July 01, 2018 Outlook Web Bureau Former finance minister P Chidambaram on Sunday came out all guns blazing against the GST regime on its first anniversary, terming it an "RSS tax" that had led to an increase in tax burden and become a "bad word" among the people. The senior Congress leader, while slamming the Goods and Services Tax (GST), said it is a "very different animal and not a true GST". "GST means one tax rate only. If (it has) multiple rates, call it 'RSS tax'... It is an undeniable fact that GST has not yet had a positive impact on economic growth," Chidambaram told reporters at the party's office in New Delhi. The design, structure, infrastructure backbone, rate or rates and implementation of the GST were so flawed that GST has become a bad word among business persons, traders, exporters and the common citizens," he said. The only section that appears to be happy about the GST is the tax admi

Outlook July 03, 2018 Naseer Ganai As three Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) MLAs have come out openly against the party president Mehbooba Mufti and described the Mehbooba Mufti’s rule as “family raj”, the split in the PDP seems a reality now. With the State Assembly in suspended animation, apprehensions of the National Conference that the BJP could form the government with a breakaway faction of the PDP looks another reality in restive Jammu and Kashmir. First to criticise Mehbooba Mufti was Abid Ansari, an MLA from Zadibal constituency of Hazratbal. He was joined by Imran Raza Ansari, former Minister and senior PDP leader.  Imran Ansari on  Monday hit out at Mehbooba and accused her of promoting family raj during her Chief Ministership. “The PDP had become a family thing as it was run by brothers, uncles and aunts,” Ansari said referring to Tasaduq Mufti, brother of Mehbooba, who was a cabinet minister. He also pointed to Sartaj Madni, Mehbooba’s uncle, who was all-pow