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Indian Express January 28, 2019 A day after the CBI booked former MD and CEO of ICICI Bank Chanda Kochhar along with her husband Deepak Kochhar and Videocon Group’s V N Dhoot for cheating and conspiracy, the officer investigating the case was transferred out. SP Sudhanshu Dhar Mishra, who was part of the Banking and Securities Fraud Cell (BSFC) of CBI in Delhi and signed the Chanda Kochhar FIR on January 22, was transferred to the agency’s Economic Offences Branch in Ranchi the very next day. Two days later, Union Minister Arun Jaitley went on social media against the CBI FIR suggesting it was “investigative adventurism” and a “journey to nowhere.” On Friday, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman retweeted Jaitley’s comments. Calls and text messages sent to the CBI spokesperson did not elicit any response. Government sources told The Sunday Express that Jaitley’s comments were mere “elderly advice,” and should not be construed...

Indian Express January 26, 2019 India should be clear about its role in Afghanistan and do whatever it can to encourage that the Taliban shun violent extremism and become mainstream, former National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon has said. India has been a key stakeholder in the peace and reconciliation process in Afghanistan and has committed aid worth USD 3 billion to the war-ravaged country. New Delhi sent two former diplomats in “non-official” capacity to a conference on the Afghan peace process in Moscow in November which was attended by a high-level Taliban delegation. The conference organised by Russia was attended by representatives of Afghanistan as well as from several other countries, including the US, Pakistan and China.India has been maintaining a policy of not engaging with the Taliban and pressing for an Afghan-owned and Afghan-led peace initiative to bring peace and stability in the war-torn country. “India should do whatever it can to encourage that t...

By S A Aiyar, Times of India Dated: January 27, 2019 Oxfam’s annual Global Inequality Report once again bemoans growing inequality, and has again been criticised for methodological flaws. Forget the technicalities and see Oxfam’s India Equality report, 2018. This says inequality fell sharply in the socialist era between 1950 and 1980, but later widened, especially after the 1991 economic reforms. The report’s rhetoric suggests that the poor were better off in the socialist phase of growing equality, but were oppressed in the unequal liberalisation era. That is a plain falsehood. The socialist era did indeed soak the rich. Indira Gandhi’s Garibi Hatao phase raised the peak income tax rate to 97.75%, adding a wealth tax of 3.5%. Many industries were nationalised (banks, general insurance, coal, etc). Most exports and imports were canalized through public sector agencies. Did this end poverty? Not at all. GDP growth remained a miserable 3.5%, half the rate of...

By Akansha Kumar,The Quint Dated: January 26, 2019 The police in Uttar Pradesh (UP) has been under the scanner for ‘fake’ encounters under the regime of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, with families of victims crying foul over the suspicious killings of their near and dear ones. According to the information provided by the UP police, 1142 encounters were reported in the state between 20 March 2017 and 31 January 2018. On 11 January 2019, a press release by the Office of the High Commissioner for United Nations Human Rights (OHCHR) ‘expressed alarm about allegations of at least 59 extrajudicial killings by police in Uttar Pradesh since March 2017’. Four UN human rights experts have sent detailed information about 15 such cases to the Indian government. They have expressed concerns about a pattern that suggests ‘individuals allegedly being abducted or arrested before their killing, and their bodies bearing injuries indicative of torture’. The Quint sent a ques...

Bloomberg Quint By Shivam Shankar Singh January 26, 2019 The BJP government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi introduced a bill to give 10% reservation to the economically poor that fall within the General category. This group had not received any reservation benefits until now, but would become eligible for reservation with the passage of the bill in both houses of Parliament on 9 January 2019. As soon as it was introduced, it was hailed by BJP supporters as a major reform in introducing economic justice into a system that had previously depended on social backwardness (defined by caste) to determine people’s eligibility for reservation. Even the opposition supported the bill, restricting its criticism to the specific criteria laid down to determine economic backwardness, to the fact that there aren’t enough new jobs being created, or to the fact that it could be struck down by the Supreme Court and was only a political gimmick. All three are valid...

Bitcoin.com January 28, 2019 On Jan. 24, Singapore’s ministry of law, in an apparent reaction to the growing acceptance of virtual currency, cautioned that cryptocurrency is not legal tender and advised businesses to exercise due diligence before accepting it as a form of payment. The ministry’s pronouncement follows the sealing of a partnership between a jewelry chain store called SK Jewellery and Singapore-based point-of-sale systems firm Bizkey Network to operationalize cryptocurrency payments. Elsewhere, the Central Bank of Samoa has previously warned citizens that it does not issue or regulate cryptocurrencies. The central bank maintained that cryptocurrencies are not legal tender in Samoa, warning that digital coins are risky and speculative. In Zambia, where cryptocurrencies have yet to register substantial trade volume, the central bank has issued a similar warning. However, it is important to clarify what “legal tender” means in order to determine the intent ...

By Kallol Bhattacharjee, The Hindu Dated: January 27, 2019 Despite the looming general election, India should take serious note of the implications of the latest round of Taliban-U.S. talks that ended on Sunday, experts said here. The talks are expected to resume in February but former diplomats said India should watch out of the proxy masters of the Taliban in the Pakistani military establishment. Future of fighters A major issue in the talks is the future of Taliban fighters presently held in the government prisons in Afghanistan. “The Government of Afghanistan should be consulted before critical decisions are taken that could alter the power equation inside Afghanistan. Taliban captives are in custody of the Afghan government so it is fair to hear what the government has to say regarding this first,” said Satinder K. Lambah, former Special Envoy of the Prime Minister of India. India is yet to respond to the latest dialogue that reportedly led to broad a...