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THE HINDU September 16, 2018 The allegations come as China ramps up efforts to encourage Taiwanese to settle in China permanently, with new identity cards and other inducements. China on Sunday accused Taiwan's spy agencies of stepping up efforts to steal intelligence with the aim of “infiltration” and “sabotage”, and warned the island against further damaging already strained cross-strait ties. The relevant agencies in Taiwan must end such activities immediately, the official Xinhua news agency said, citing An Fengshan, a spokesman of China's policy-making Taiwan Affairs Office. On Saturday, state television kicked off the first in a series of programmes detailing cases in which Chinese students studying in Taiwan are said to be targeted by domestic spies who lure them with money, love and friendship. The allegations come as China ramps up efforts to encourage Taiwanese to settle in China permanently, with new identity cards and other inducements. T

The Indian Express September 16, 2018 Almost three months after Pakistan was placed on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list for failing to curb terror funding, Pakistan’s recent action against terror financing, particularly on the “legal” front, was found to be “unsatisfactory”, according to a review by the Asia Pacific Policy Group (APPG). The APPG examines cases of all countries on the grey and black lists and reports to the FATF. Official sources said that a review held on September 11-12 in Jakarta observed that “not much has been achieved by Pakistan, especially on the legal side (like freezing of assets, attachment of funds, militant groups infrastructures etc).” The APPG also reviewed Pakistan on its compliance with the 26-point action plan, which Islamabad, in February this year, had submitted to the FATF to choke the funding of militants groups, including Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and its affiliates. The d

THE INDIAN EXPRESS September 16, 2018 Vidyanathan Iyer India did not have a rulebook to refer to a decade ago when it was hit by a seismic shock with its epicentre some 12,500 km away. In the initial days post the Lehman collapse on September 15, 2008, many in the government did not think much of the crisis. The growth euphoria of the previous years had led to a widespread notion that the Indian economy was decoupled from that of the developed world. But within a fortnight, then Finance Minister P Chidambaram had to re-engineer an aircraft that was flying high. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister then, was to Chidambaram what P V Narasimha Rao had been to him during the 1991-92 crisis. He has not got due credit for steadying the boat, and ensuring a quick recovery. But soon enough, India faltered. High-growth periods have a tendency to obfuscate facts. Since the Asian crisis of 1998, India has integrated more and more with the global economy. In fact, the high — almost dou

THE ECONOMIC TIMES September 16, 2018 ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan, who has been awarded Rs 50 lakh compensation by the Supreme Court for being subjected to mental cruelty in the 1994 espionage case, says he became a pawn in the case in which the conspirators were different with different motives but the victims were the same set of people. The Supreme Court Friday ordered a high-level probe into the role of Kerala Police officials in the "fabricating" the case and arresting and causing "tremendous harassment" and "immeasurable anguish"to Narayanan. Terming the police action against the 76-year-old former scientist as "psycho-pathological treatment", a bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra said his "liberty and dignity", basic to his human rights, were jeopardised as he was taken into custody and, eventually, despite all the glory of the past, was compelled to face "cynical abhorrence".  According to Nara

THE ECONOMIC TIMES September 16, 2018 The government plans to soon initiate the strategic sale process for at least four subsidiaries of loss-making Air India, including Airline Allied Services Ltd (AASL) and Hotel Corporation of India (HCI), according to officials.  Besides, plans are on the anvil for selling the headquarter building of Air India in the national capital as well as various other land assets and buildings of the airline in different parts of the country.  The government has prepared a list of the airline's assets that could be hived off as part of the strategic sale plan for Air India and its subsidiaries, officials said.  According to them, the disinvestment process is likely to be initiated soon for four Air India subsidiaries -- AASL, HCI, Air India Air Transport Service Ltd (AIATSL) and Air India Engineering Service Ltd (AIESL).  While AASL, under the name Alliance Air, provides regional air connectivity, HCI owns and operates two hotels

GEO NEWS SEPTEMBER 16, 2018 PESHAWAR: The FIA on Sunday arrested over 25 persons and recovered foreign currency worth Rs25 million in an operation against the illegal business of Hawala/Hundi in Peshawar on Sunday.  Afghan nationals are among those arrested from Karkhano Market and Chowk Yadgar for involvement in the transfer of money through illegal channels, said Director General of Federal Investigation Agency's (FIA) Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) wing Bashir Ahmed Memon.  A heavy contingent of the police force was deployed during the operation. Over 50 shops were sealed while the raid was under way.    DG FIA Ahmed noted that continued operations of the hundi business are not possible without the involvement of FIA officials.  Last month, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) gave Pakistan 15 months to comply with its requirements, with the deadline set to expire in September 2019.  At least 27 deficiencies were identified by the FATF pertaining to curren

THE INDIAN EXPRESS  SEPTEMBER 16, 2018 Additional Secretary, Department of Economic Affairs, CS Mohapatra said that the government has put in place necessary policy measures to bring about financial stability, and noted that the authorities have “almost” cleaned the NPA mess. Pointing out that charges on Indian exchanges such as commodities transaction tax and securities transaction tax were higher than international market places such as Singapore and Hong Kong, a finance ministry official on Saturday called for reduction in these transaction costs over a period of time. Currently, commodities transaction tax is levied at a rate of 0.01 per cent on non-agricultural commodities, while the securities transaction tax is charged at a rate ranging from 0.001 per cent to 0.2 per cent depending on the nature of transaction. Notably, a recent set of recommendations by a Niti Aayog committee suggested scrapping of commodities transaction tax on gold. Speaking at the annual

THE INDIAN EXPRESS SEPTEMBER 16, 2018 NEW YORK/ZURICH: The Tezos cryptocurrency project is preparing to launch the long-awaited main version of its network that underpins a new virtual token on Monday, a Swiss foundation that promotes the initiative said on Twitter on Friday. The Tezos Foundation raised $232 million in July 2017 to build the network and issue a new type of cryptocurrency to its backers in one of the largest-ever initial coin offerings and launched an initial version of the network one year later after months of delays. The Tezos Foundation plans to transition the network to a mainnet, or a more complete version, on Monday, according to a message seen by Reuters by Ryan Jesperson, the foundation’s president. That launch would mark an achievement in a project hobbled by internal infighting and delays. Tezos still faces litigation in the United States and the threat of increased regulatory scrutiny of the nascent cryptocurrency sector. A high-profi

THE INDIAN EXPRESS SEPTEMBER 16, 2018 ABHISHEK SAHA Neither Zaman’s family nor Shah Newaz had alerted the police that the suspected militant was visiting his home, Hojai Superintendent of Police Ankur Jain said. DAYS AFTER an alleged Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) militant from Assam, identified as Qamar uz Zaman, was arrested in Uttar Pradesh, the police Saturday claimed to have arrested a “close associate” in Assam’s Hojai district. The alleged associate was identified as Shah Newaz, 39. A team of Assam Police went to UP to question Zaman, while a police team from the Hindi heartland state reached Hojai on Saturday to primarily question Shah Newaz. Officials said the police may also question other people suspected to be involved with Zaman. Zaman, who was untraceable since July 2017, was said to have joined the HM after a gun-wielding photo of his emerged on social media in April this year. The police said it has now emerged in investigation that Zaman may have

THE INDIA EXPRESS SEPTEMBER 16, 2018 Jaitley, who spoke to reporters after Prime Minister Narendra Modi held an economic review meeting with all Departments of the Finance Ministry Saturday, said the government would push ahead with its planned capital expenditure without any reduction. A day after announcing steps to contain the current account deficit (CAD), Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said the government will meet the fiscal deficit target of 3.3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) for the current fiscal year. This, he said, would be possible as direct tax collections are expected to remain above estimates, and the government hopes to cross the disinvestment target of Rs 80,000 crore. Jaitley, who spoke to reporters after Prime Minister Narendra Modi held an economic review meeting with all Departments of the Finance Ministry Saturday, said the government would push ahead with its planned capital expenditure without any reduction. The government also expects t

THE INDIAN EXPRESS SEPTEMBER 16, 2018 The inaugural military field training exercise for BIMSTEC nations named MILEX-18 is currently under progress at Aundh Military Station since September 10. IN the inaugural Army Chiefs’ Conclave, organised along with the first joint military exercise of BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) countries, discussions were held on country specific issues related to terrorism, transnational crimes and ‘possibility of creating viable regional security architecture to deal with these threats’. The inaugural military field training exercise for BIMSTEC nations named MILEX-18 is currently under progress at Aundh Military Station since September 10. In addition to the military exercise, an inaugural BIMSTEC Nations Army Chiefs’ Conclave was also organised at the College of Military Engineering on Saturday under the aegis of Headquarters Southern Command. “The Chiefs of the Army of the memb

THE INDIAN EXPRESS SEPTEMBER 16, 2018 SUSHANT KULKARNI Pune not only has several military establishments, it also has conducive weather conditions to conduct such exercises. AS India has been participating in an increasing number of joint military exercises over the last decade, Pune, as the host city, as well as the Pune-headquartered Southern Command, have played a pivotal role in making them successful. While these exercises are essentially mechanisms of military diplomacy, they also provide a great platform for exchange of military strategy and practices, and also convey a message to other countries. The focus of recent military exercises has been on counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency operations in various settings, like semi-urban or jungle terrain. These exercises have given opportunities to the Army units to share their experiences in dealing with terrorism, practicing various types of combat and handling improvised explosive devices. In 2016, Pune hosted

THE INDIAN EXPRESS SEPTEMBER 16, 2018 TALVEEN SINGH Instead of competing to distance themselves from big business our political leaders should explain to the people of India why a company that produced 40 per cent of our copper was forcibly closed by the  Tamil Nadu government . Never did I think I would one day defend Vijay Mallya. We have a bad history. He left me stranded in the wilds of rural Karnataka once with an injured cameraman to take care of. Ajmal Jami’s arm broke because he was filming Mallya in his chopper when it crashed because of bad weather. Immediately after the crash, Mallya took off in a Mercedes van followed by a cavalcade of expensive SUVs deployed in his campaign to enter the Lok Sabha. The cavalcade moved fast so it took me a while to catch up with the Mercedes van. In it I found Mallya recovering from the crash by knocking back a glass of vodka. His friend and fellow traveller Sanjay Khan sat opposite him. And next to him was his fawning secretar

THE HINDU SEPTEMBER 16, 2018 TABISH KHAIR The inability of the politically blinkered to comprehend the expanse of scholarship, whether in India or in Syria, is worrying Recently, several human rights activists, alleged to be ‘conspirators’, were taken into custody by the police in India. Who are these activists or ‘conspirators’? I cannot answer this question, except by quoting from the newspapers, as I do not know any of them. I do not even know them through their writing, which probably reveals one of my areas of ignorance. While all of them are established scholars or journalists, I can only vaguely recognise a couple of names from media reports read in the past. Hence, I am not in the position to ‘attest to their character’, to use a foolish but, in this case, inevitable phrase. I do not even know those who know these arrested activists personally. Given my ignorance, I cannot question the information that the police might have, or the decisions they take in the

THE ECONOMIC TIMES SEPTEMBER 14, 2018 NEW DELHI: Even as a recent study published in the The Lancet Public Health pegged the number of suicides in India in 2016 at 2.57 lakh, with women in India accounting for nearly 37% of suicides across the world, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data show far fewer suicides.  Sample this: The Lancet paper claims that of the nearly 2.57 lakh Indians who committed suicide in 2016, nearly 94,380 were women while the 2015 NCRB report showed 1.33 lakh suicides, of which 42,088 were women. As per the NCRB data, there were 91,528 suicides by males.  According to Rakhi Dandona, the principal author of the Lancet study, NCRB is dependent on data that is under-reported at different levels in the absence of a robust system to keep a track of vital registeration and cause of death. “This system exists in the urban sector but is largely absent in the rural areas."  The data collected by the Lancet researchers is based on sample