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The Telegraph india August 28, 2018 Facebook's announcement on Monday that it was removing accounts connected to Myanmar's military effectively cuts off the armed forces' main channel of communication with the public. Facebook dominates the social media landscape in Myanmar, where millions of people have come online for the first time since reforms to liberalise the telecoms sector began in 2013. The government uses Facebook to make major announcements, including the resignation of the country's President in March. Facebook said it had banned 20 individuals and organisations to prevent the spread of "hate and misinformation" after reviewing the content. The ban included two pages dedicated to the army's commander-in-chief, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, that have been the military's primary outlet for information, especially around the crisis in the western state of Rakhine last year. More than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims fled the ...

Hindustan Times August 28, 2018 China on Monday sought to delink the contentious economic corridor it’s building through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir from Sino-India ties, saying recent meetings between the leaders of the two sides have given the relationship “fresh impetus”. “We are neighbours, we are partners. Historically we were together and in the future, I never believe that anybody can separate India and China,” Zhang Jun, assistant minister of foreign affairs, said while describing ties between New Delhi and Beijing. Zhang was among senior leaders who addressed the media on five years of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Xi’s ambitious multi-billion dollar connectivity project. India hasn’t joined the BRI as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), one of its flagship projects, passes through PoK. The project became another irritant between the two countries since it was unveiled in 2013. “China has repeatedly stated the CPEC is an economic initiati...

Hindustan Times August 28, 2018 Pointing out that the seas around India have nurtured its links of commerce and culture with its extended neighbourhood over millenia, external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday said that nurturing a climate of peace and stability in this region is an important priority for New Delhi’s foreign policy. “This region is host to the world’s busiest waterways and three quarters of that traffic is headed for destinations beyond our region,” Sushma Swaraj said while addressing the Third Indian Ocean Conference in Hanoi. “As an important trade and energy waterway, carrying half the world’s container shipment, one third of its bulk cargo traffic and two third of oil shipments, the Indian Ocean clearly assumes importance well beyond its immediate shores and its littorals,” she said. “Nurturing a climate of peace and stability in this region is therefore an important priority for our foreign policy.” Stating that that though there is...

The Telegraph India August 28, 2018 Myanmar's army commander-in-chief and five other generals should face trial in an international court for genocide against Rohingya Muslims and for crimes against humanity, UN investigators said on Monday after a year-long inquiry. The panel levelled the most serious charges - "genocide" and "genocidal intent" - over the ferocious campaign unleashed by the Buddhist-majority security forces against Rohingya Muslims a year ago. That campaign, in the state of Rakhine, sent more than 700,000 fleeing across the border to Bangladesh. At least 40,000 have escaped to India, too. The UN defines genocide as acts meant to destroy a national, ethnic, racial or religious group in whole or in part. The designation is rare but has been used in Bosnia, Rwanda and Sudan. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief, is one of six generals named as priority subjects for investigation and prosecution in a report deta...

The Economic Times August 28, 2018 India can capture the Chinese commodity market vacated by US exports following the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies, a commerce department study has found.  The study has analysed and identified at least a 100 products where India can replace US exports to China by benefiting from the higher import duty Beijing has imposed on products originating in the US.  India can, in particular, grab a bigger share of the Chinese market for cotton, corn, almonds, wheat and sorghum, according to the study.  “These retaliatory tariffs provide awindow of opportunity for enhancing India’s exports to China. The purpose of analysis is to identify such lines,” the commerce department said in the study, seen by ET.  Fresh grapes, cotton linters, fluecured tobacco, lubricants and certain chemicals, including benzene, are a few lines where the US’ exports to China are above $10 million. India too has been export...

The Economic Times August 27, 2018 The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has formed a new unit within the central bank to beef up its own intellectual capital in the face of emerging technologies like cryptocurrency, blockchain and artificial intelligence.  This new unit will research and possibly draft rules and supervise new emerging technologies in the future, two people familiar with the central bank’s plans said.  “As a regulator, the RBI also has to explore new emerging areas to check what can be adopted and what cannot. A central bank has to be on top to create regulations. This new unit is on an experimental basis and will evolve as time passes,” said one of the people cited above.  The Unit is just about a month old as of now and though a chief general manager is identified to lead it, a formal announcement internally has not been made yet.  An RBI spokesperson did not reply to an email seeking comment. Analysts said RBI is doing the right ...

The Hindu Business Line August 27, 2018 Some political parties have requested the Election Commission to fix a certain percentage of Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails’ (VVPATs) slips count to enhance the trust in Electronic Voting Machines. This emerged at meeting that the Commission had with all the seven national parties and 34 State-recognised parties here on Monday. The Commission assured the parties that this was being looked into with expert inputs from the Indian Statistical Institute. Interestingly, the meeting was held as 17 opposition parties were planning to approach the Commission demanding that ballot papers be used in the forthcoming 2019 Lok Sabha polls instead of EVMs and VVPATs. Back to paper The opposition has raised issues about the effectiveness of EVMs time and again, the last one being in June this year when by-elections were held for Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh. The Congress said that EVMs have been found faulty and non-function...

The Indian Express August 28, 2018 The UN Special Rapporteur on promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye, is planning to visit India next year and has written to India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva. Kaye, a professor of law at University of California, Irvine, School of Law, has been the UN Special Rapporteur since August 2014. He has asked the Narendra Modi government for a visit in keeping with the mandate of his office, and communicated his intention on July 25, according to information. An expert on international human rights law, his research and writing focus on accountability for serious human rights abuses and the law governing use of force. He has collaborated with local and national governments, major international NGOs as well as those at the grassroots, international organisations, and academic institutions around the world. While UN rapporteurs visit countries as part of their mandate, he ...

The Indian Express  August 28, 2018 THE SUPREME Court on Monday issued notice to the Centre and WhatsApp on a petition which said the messaging platform was yet to comply with the requirements under Indian law, including the appointment of a grievance officer. A bench of Justices R F Nariman and Indu Malhotra issued the notice on a plea filed by NGO Centre for Accountability and Systemic Change (CASC). The parties have four weeks to file their replies. The NGO also requested the court not to allow the platform to proceed with its payment service unless it meets the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines. The CASC submitted that a customer who wants to open a bank account needs to comply with KYC norms laid down by the RBI and fulfil various other requirements. But “WhatsApp is a foreign company with no office or servers in India. To run payments service in India, WhatsApp is obligated to have its office and payments in India,” it said. “Moreover, it is also requ...

DailyHunt August 27, 2018 Foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale visited Russia last week to follow up on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Vladimir Putin's informal summit in May and to lobby for India's Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) membership. NSG is an elite club of countries that deals with the trade in nuclear technology and fissile materials. India is making a renewed bid for getting NSG membership. It expects Moscow to help India get it. The 48-member NSG works on the principle of consensus for admitting new members. India has not signed the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for an entry into the group. But New Delhi has maintained it has impeccable non-proliferation credentials that had enabled the country to get a waiver from the grouping to operationalise the India-US nuclear deal and get into nuclear commerce. There was no Indian statement on Gokhale's visit on August 24. But Russians said deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov held consulta...

The Indian Express August 28, 2018 The Indian delegation will be led by the country’s Commissioner for Indus Waters P K Saxena, and consist of technical experts, and Pakistan will be led by its Indus Commissioner Syed Muhammad Mehar Ali Shah, sources said.India and Pakistan are expected to discuss two under-construction hydroelectric projects, initiated by India on the Chenab basin, at the 115th meeting of the Permanent Indus Commission to be held this week in Lahore. The Indian delegation will be led by the country’s Commissioner for Indus Waters P K Saxena, and consist of technical experts, and Pakistan will be led by its Indus Commissioner Syed Muhammad Mehar Ali Shah, sources said. “Pakistan feels that design of two under-construction Indian hydroelectric projects in Chenab basin — Pakal Dul (1,000 MW) and Lower Kalnai (48 MW) — violate the Treaty provisions. The Indian side affirms its right to build these projects and holds that their (projects’) design is fully i...