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The Indian Express July 20, 2018 The panel also expressed deep concern over the large number of kidnappings in Assam, mostly of women, and surge in insurgency in Arunachal Pradesh, which it termed as “alarming”. A parliamentary standing committee asked the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to prepare a detailed and generous rehabilitation-cum-settlement scheme for the NSCN-IM cadres who will surrender as per of the Naga Accord. The committee also recommended that the “government should, nevertheless, proactively, stay prepared for any kind of scenario that may emerge in the aftermath of the agreement, and keep the security forces and intelligence agencies on the alert,” the report noted. The MHA, the report said, had informed the panel headed by senior Congress leader P Chidambaram that issues related to territorial integrity have been resolved. “…they had now reached a common understanding with the Government that boundaries of the States will not be touched. Instead, s

The Financial Express July 20, 2018 Bloomberg Along with rising oil prices and Indians’ love for electronic goods made abroad, an adverse terms of trade position could widen the country’s current-account deficit. A weak currency is good for exports. In India’s case, the script is not so straightforward. While the rupee is Asia’s worst-performing major currency this year, a demand-killing trade war threatens Indian exports that have already been hurt by policy disruptions over the past two years. History shows the currency’s moves have hardly impacted shipments. If anything, a slide in the rupee has ended up inflating the nation’s import bill. “The situation for export prospects is weak given the kind of trade war happening in the world,” said N.R. Bhanumurthy, an economist at Delhi-based National Institute for Public Finance and Policy and a co-author of a 2013 paper on whether rupee’s weakness matters to Indian manufacturing exports. Unlike China, Taiwan and So

The Express Tribune July 20, 2018 Sohail Khattak The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) on Thursday served notices to former chief minister of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Pervez Khattak, Jamiat Ulema-e Islam (F) chief Fazlur Rehman and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Ayaz Sadiq over the use of abusive and derogatory language against in their speeches. The Election oversight commission summoned the leaders on July 21 to explain their actions. The notifications have directed the leaders to desist from using offensive or abusive language against other political parties in their speeches at political gatherings. The notices state that they have violated the code of conduct for political parties and candidate issued by the ECP. While addressing a crowd in Nowshera, Khattak used offensive language against supporters of Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Footage of the incident began to do the rounds on social media and was subsequently shown by the various news organisations.

The Express Tribune July 20, 2018 Salman Siddiqui The current account deficit, which remains the single largest challenge for economic managers, shot to a record high of $17.994 billion (5.7% of GDP) at the end of fiscal year ended June 30, 2018 mainly due to exorbitant imports and less-than-projected inflows. This is 44.7% higher than $12.44 billion recorded in the previous fiscal year 2017. State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Tariq Bajwa said last week that the deficit has grown to an “unsustainable level” due to soaring aggregate demand in the economy. To tame demand, the central bank has let the rupee fall by close to 22% to Rs128 to the US dollar since December 2017, and made borrowing expensive by increasing the benchmark interest rate by 175 basis points to 7.5% in the last six months. “The Real Effective Exchange Rate (rupee-dollar parity) and monetary policy (the benchmark interest rate) are two effective tools available with the central bank to d

The Indian Express July 20, 2018 The announcement of US-India '2+2 dialogue' comes a month after the US postponed the dialogue — which was supposed to be held in Washington —  due to “unavoidable reasons”. The first US-India ‘2+2 dialogue’ will be held on September 6 in New Delhi, the State Department announced Friday, according to PTI. The announcement comes a month after the US postponed the dialogue — which was supposed to be held in Washington —  due to “unavoidable reasons”. “The United States is pleased to announce that the inaugural US-India ‘2+2 dialogue’ will be held in New Delhi, India, on September 6,” State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a statement. He also informed that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defence Secretary James Mattis would be traveling to India for the much-awaited dialogue. “Pompeo and Mattis look forward to meeting with their Indian counterparts, Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj and Minister of Defence Nirma

The Economic Times July 20, 2018 Kirtika Suneja The Trump administration will share a list of its trade issues with India next week, as the two sides seek to iron out their differences over bilateral trade that have arisen from tit-for-tat tariff actions in the last few months. This was agreed at a new round of talks between the two countries in Washington, an official said. “All issues were discussed.  They were talking of general things, we wanted specific. They will send us a text of what they want, in the next week or ten days,” the official told ET.  While preferential benefits to Indian exports under US Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) and America’s higher tariffs on steel and aluminium were discussed at the talks, the US officials were also curious about the concessions that China has offered India under the Asia Pacific Trade Agreement.  Last month, China had said it would reduce or cancel tariffs on imports of 8,549 types of goods from India, South

The Economic Express July 19, 2018 Pratik Bhakta The finance ministry wants banks to start issuing near field communication (NFC)-enabled contactless credit and debit cards to their customers so that the government can expand the use of card payments beyond simple merchant transactions.  In a letter marked to chief executives of banks, a copy of which was seen by ET, the ministry said that NFC or contactless cards are the next generation of innovation in the cards space which can bring about added security and convenience for digital payments, hence banks should start giving out such cards to its customers.  “As and when cards need to be re-carded, then at that stage the new cards being issued can be NFC enabled/contactless and whenever new cards are being issued they could also be NFC enabled/contactless,” read the note circulated by the ministry. Further the ministry said in its note that if such cards are issued then they can be used for mass transit like metro,

The Economic Times July 19, 2018 Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said the company is going to be “strict” in removing false news and, going forward, will remove all content that could result in “real physical harm” or is “attacking individuals”.  “The principles that we have on what we remove from the service are: If it’s going to result in real harm, real physical harm, or if you are attacking individuals, then that content shouldn’t be on the platform. There’s a lot of categories of that, which we can get into, but then there’s broad debate,” Zuckerberg said in an interview with technology news website Recode.  The social media giant is accused of helping fuel violence in countries like Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and India. The new policy is widely seen as a reaction to the rumours that spread on Facebook that lead to violence against ethnic minorities.  “The approach that we have taken to false news is not to say, you can’t say something wrong on the internet

The Asian Age July 19, 2018 The stake sale plan did not attract any bidders when the deadline for submitting Expression of Interest ended on May 31. The government on Wednesday said it would revisit the Air India disinvestment plan after oil prices, foreign exchange and other global economic indicators stabilise. While asserting that the government remains committed to the disinvestment of Air India, Union minister Jayant Sinha told the Rajya Sabha that the national carrier has shown "considerable improvement" in operational and financial parameters in the recent past. The government's proposal to sell 76 per cent stake as well as transfer management control of the debt-laden airline to private players failed to take off in May. Sinha said transaction advisor had cited 24 per cent government stake and corresponding rights, and high amount of allocated debt as the reasons for not receiving any bids. Other probable reasons cited by EY were "chan

THE WIRE  July 19, 2018 N.N. Vohra is an old hand on Kashmir, but civilian killings and endless cycle of protests will not make it easy for him to handle the situation. In the first 29 days of his rule, 12 civilians have already been killed. On July 11, J&K governor N.N. Vohra cleared a long pending demand of state employees for removal of pay anomaly, an issue hanging fire for 22 years. Within minutes of the clearance, which would benefit thousands of employees from clerical cadre and other categories, the civil secretariat in Srinagar burst into jubilation. This was one of many “pro-people decisions” taken by Vohra since he took charge of the state on June 20, following the demise of the PDP-BJP government. His twitter handle has already become a hit among people to register complaints and seek redressal. In one such case, the governor sought a detailed report about allegations of corruption against former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti and former speaker Kavin

The Express Tribune July 19, 2018 Shahbaz Rana Amid concerns expressed by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) over violations of the counter-terrorism financing regime committed by the country’s financial institutions, Pakistan faces a challenge to effectively regulate telecom companies that are conducting transactions worth billions of rupees every month through mobile wallet accounts. Some telecom companies that are operating a network of agents through microfinance banks are reluctant to be adequately regulated, said sources in the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). There are also regulatory lacunae, as the anti-money laundering (AML) and countering financing of terrorism (CFT) regulations are not applicable to Level-0 and Level-1 accounts being operated by these agents, said the sources. SECP rolls out new anti-money laundering regulations in line with FATF recommendations Through the level-0 account, up to Rs25,000 and through level-1 account, Rs50,000 c

The Tribune July 19, 2018 British Prime Minister Theresa May narrowly survived another crunch Brexit vote in Parliament, as she struggles to unify her divided party around her strategy for leaving the European Union.  The Conservative government yesterday defeated an amendment introduced by its own backbench MPs to a future trade policy bill which would have kept Britain in a customs union with the EU if it fails to agree a free trade deal.  If the amendment had passed it would have thrown May’s Brexit strategy into disarray. Government whips overcame the rebellion by a dozen Tory lawmakers —reportedly issuing last-ditch threats it would prompt a no-confidence vote in the prime minister — and scraped through by six votes, winning by 307 to 301. It was bolstered by the support of four pro-Brexit opposition Labour Party MPs.  — Reuters In a rowdy session of Parliament, PM May was challenged by one pro-Brexit lawmaker in her party to explain when she had decided to cha

First Post July 19, 2018 Intelligence agencies have warned the government that a group of terrorists could be waiting near the Line of Control (LoC) to infiltrate into the Indian territory. The intel reports have suggested that terrorists plan to carry out a big terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir and they may target the Amarnath Yatra as well. According to the inputs received by the government, the terrorists which are learned to be associated with Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen, are currently stationed at various terror launch pads near the LoC, Zee News reported. As per the report, terrorists are also being trained by Pakistan's ISI to attack an Indian Naval base for which they are being given underwater attack and deep sea techniques training. According to a DNA report, in the wake of these inputs, security forces along the LoC have tightened the vigil. ITBP, CRPF, Indian Army and the Jammu and Kashmir Police have been asked to be on high alert. In

The Express Tribune July 19, 2018 Hasnaat Malik Pakistan on Tuesday submitted its second counter-memorial to India’s arguments on the conviction of RAW agent Kulbhushan Jadhav before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague. Sources told The Express Tribune that Pakistan rebutted Indian’s allegations that Kulbhushan’s wife and mother were ‘mistreated’ when they visited to meet him last year. Pakistan also raised the jurisdiction issue of the ICJ that India had no case to plead because it never denied that Jadhav was travelling on a passport on a cover or the assumed Muslim name ‘Mubarak Patel’, the sources added. Moreover, some international legal experts’ opinions have also been referred to in the counter pleadings to justify that effective review of the decisions of military courts is potentially available before high courts of Pakistan. The reply has been submitted by Director India at the Foreign Office Dr Fareha Bugti along with Khawar Qureshi, Q