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Business Line October 29, 2018 M Ramesh L&T MBDA Missile Systems Ltd, a joint venture between Larsen & Toubro and French company MBDA, is awaiting the grant of an industrial licence to export fully assembled missile systems to Europe.  The industrial licence, under the Arms Act,1959, is given by the Union Home Ministry, but has been delegated to the Commerce Ministry.   BusinessLine   has learnt that the Commerce Ministry will take up L&T MBDA’s application for licence at the Board of Approvals meeting on November 5. As soon as it secures the licence, L&T MBDA, in which L&T holds 51 per cent, will begin to produce missiles from a leased plant in Coimbatore’s Aspen SEZ in Coimbatore. (The SEZ is owned by the family of Suzlon group founder Tulsi Tanti).  L&T has been producing missile subsystems for both Indian programmes and MBDA for the past few years. However, the JV with MBDA, announced in April 2017, is for “nearly full missile assembly except e

Business Line October 26, 2018 Jyothi Datta Products such as pacemakers, insulin pumps, and even hospital systems are being hacked. It’s time to be vigilant.  October is national cyber security awareness month, says the United States Food and Drug Administration — an initiative that affects not just medical device manufacturers but also consumers and patients, as pacemakers, insulin pumps and entire hospital systems have been found vulnerable to threats lurking in the internet or from hackers outside the system. Earlier this month, the USFDA issued a safety communication to patients and healthcare providers on a software update to address security vulnerabilities associated with Medtronic’s implantable cardiac device programmers. The vulnerabilities could allow an unauthorised user to change the programmer’s functionality or the implanted device during device implantation procedure or follow-up visits. Last year, Abbott recalled over five lakh pacemakers (from its St Jude Me

The Wire October 29, 2018 Reliance Industries, currently India’s second-most valuable listed company, got rich by trading fuel across Asia, Africa and Europe while effectively ignoring its home market. Reliance’s refineries processed crude from the nearby Middle East and sold fuel to fast-growing markets in North Asia including China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. That began to change when India’s oil demand surged, overtaking Japan as the world’s third-biggest consumer. Reliance took more interest in the country’s retail fuel sector and has opened more than 1,300 service stations.  This push into the domestic fuel market stumbled after the Indian government imposed cost controls on October 4 on petrol and diesel prices to rein in recent record highs. Reliance’s shares plunged 6.9% on the day of the announcement and are down about 20% since their record close on August 28. The decline has pushed Reliance’s market capitalisation down to 6.64 trillion rupees ($90.47 bill

Rediff.com October 29, 2018 Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe Monday held 'fruitful and extensive' talks during which they discussed issues of bilateral interest, the situation in the Indo-Pacific region and threats posed by nuclear terrorism as the two sides signed several agreements including on a high speed rail project and naval cooperation. The two leaders also agreed to initiate 2+2 dialogue involving their foreign and defence ministers. India has a similar agreement with the United States and the two sides held the first round of 2+2 dialogue in New Delhi last month. 'Held fruitful and extensive talks with PM @AbeShinzo. Today's discussions focused on aspects relating to better economic ties, stronger cooperation in areas of defence and security,' Modi tweeted after two days of summit-level talks. During the 13th annual summit, the two prime ministers reviewed developments in bilateral relations and explored new

Indian Express October 30, 2018 Prakash Singh The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has from time to time courted controversies and criticism for its handling of politically sensitive cases. In important cases, the organisation has generally toed the government line. No wonder, it was described by a former Chief Justice of India as a “caged parrot”. However, it is for the first time that the CBI finds itself in a quagmire due to an internecine feud among its top officers. The Supreme Court has, over the years, been trying to insulate the CBI from political pressures and, in the process, give it a measure of autonomy. In Vineet Narayan vs. Union of India (1998), the apex court laid down that the director, CBI shall be appointed on the recommendation of a committee comprising the Central Vigilance Commissioner, vigilance commissioners, secretary (home) and secretary (personnel), and that he shall have a minimum tenure of two years. The CVC was given statutory status and

Indian Express October 30, 2018 Anil Sasi The 13th India-Japan annual summit commenced with Prime Minister  Narendra Modi  and his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe visiting a factory of FANUC Corporation, one of the largest makers of industrial robots in the world, followed by a private dinner at Abe’s holiday home in Yamanashi prefecture. The visit to the FANUC facility was important in the context of India’s move towards Industry 4.0 by leveraging developments in the fields such as AI, IoT, 3D printing and robotics. A series of business events were lined up Monday, with a group of Japanese venture capital companies calling on Modi, followed by lunch hosted by their top industry body, and a meeting of the India-Japan Business Leaders Forum. The big announcement was the decision to conclude a bilateral currency swap agreement, which is expected to help stabilise fluctuations in the value of the rupee vis-a-vis the dollar, and bring down the cost of capital for Indian compa

Indian Express October 30, 2018   Anuradha Mascarenhas Over 1.25 lakh children in India below the age of five died in 2016 due to the impact of polluted air and almost one in five children who die from toxic air exposure across the world is from India, a new study by the World Health Organisation has said.  The WHO report, titled ‘Air Pollution and Child Health: Prescribing Clean Air’, found that polluted air inside households — generated from burning fossil fuels for cooking, lighting and heating — contributed to the deaths of about 67,000 children below the age of five in India in 2016. The study also said that outdoor air pollution, specifically PM2.5, caused by vehicular and industrial emissions and a host of other factors, accounted for nearly 61,000 deaths among children of that age group in 2016. The WHO study, which examined the toll on children breathing hazardous levels of both outdoor and household air pollution, focused on dangerous particulate matter with a diameter