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Firstpost February 15, 2019 Washington : The involvement of Jaish-e-Mohammad in Thursday's terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir has raised serious questions about the role of the Pakistani spy agency, ISI, in it, American experts on South Asia have said. The Pakistan-based JeM has claimed responsibility for the attack that left at least 37 personnel dead and many critically wounded. The experts said the terror strike shows the United States has failed to persuade Pakistan to act against Jaish-e-Mohammad and other terrorist groups. "The self-proclaimed involvement of JeM in the attack raises serious questions about the role of the ISI in supporting the masterminds of this operation," Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst, told PTI. Around 40 CRPF personnel were killed in the Pulwama terror attack. ANI The terrorist attack, which has direct footprints inside Pakistan, poses the first major challenges to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, said Riedel, who ...

Samaa TV February 14, 2019   Shakeel Ahmed The International Financial Action Task Force is going to review measures taken by Pakistan to curb money laundering and terror financing next week.  The European Commission has proposed to put the country’s name on the black list. Pakistan government has finalised a strategy for meeting with FATF. The meeting will be held from February 17 to 22 in Paris, France. The federal government has prepared a functional strategy for FATF meeting, a high-level delegation led by finance secretary will represent Pakistan in the said talks. National Counter Terrorism Authority director general and other top officials from the Financial Monitoring Unit of the State Bank will be part of the delegation too.  Pakistan team will brief the FATF authorities on measures it has taken to curb money laundering and terror financing. The delegation will put forward a list of measures Pakistan wants to adopt. ...

The Wire February 14, 2019 Ruhi Khan London:   Political rhetoric and ambiguous interpretations of the Freedom of Religion Acts (or “anti-conversion” laws) are responsible for the high rate of Christian persecution in India, according to the UK-US-based monitoring group Open Doors that publishes an annual World Watch List of 50 countries where it is most dangerous to live as a Christian. In 2019, India ranked tenth – a first in the history of the list in over two decades. Dr Matthew Rees who authored the report told  The Wire  that “India has been going up the list rather steadily for the past five years” and can now be classified as a country with extreme persecution. Approximately 64 million Christians live in India but constitute less than 5% of the total population of 1.3 billion. This report is based on the data Open Doors collects annually through an extensive survey in 75 countries. Church leaders and other community volunteers administer question...

Live Mint February 14 2019 Brussels :  Google , Amazon and other tech firms will have to tell companies how they rank their own or rival products on their platforms under new rules agreed by  EU negotiators aimed at stopping unfair practices by online platforms and app stores. Proposed by the European Commission in April last year, the platform-to-business (P2B) law is targeted at Google Play, Apple App Store, Microsoft Store, Amazon Marketplace, eBay and Fnac Marketplace. Facebook, Instagram, Skyscanner and Google Shopping, Google Search, Seznam.cz, Yahoo!, DuckDuckGo, Bing are also among the 7,000 online companies covered by the proposed rules. Google was hit with a 2.42-billion-euro ($2.7 billion) EU antitrust fine in 2017 for favouring its own price comparison shopping service, while regulators are examining whether Amazon uses merchants' data illegally to make copycat products. The rules include a blacklist of unfair trading practices, require comp...

The Hindu BusinessLine February 13, 2019 Amiti Sen   Submit paper saying support levels are multiple times higher; call for discussion Canada and the US have accused India at the World Trade Organization (WTO) of “dramatic under-reporting” of market price support for pulses — chickpeas, pigeon peas, black matpe, mung beans, and lentils — and have submitted their own steeper calculations for scrutiny of members. India’s minimum support price (MSP, also referred to as market price support) for the five pulses is about 26 times higher at  ₹ 69,923 crore instead of the notified  ₹ 2,667 crore, as per a joint submission made by the countries to the WTO on Tuesday. “It appears that India’s market price support for pulses is vastly in excess of what it has reported to the WTO. Canada and the US look forward to future discussion of the significance of India’s market price support for pulses for both India’s market and for world markets — both with India and with ...

The Hindu Business Line February 14, 2019 Chinese tech giant Huawei is ready to face any extra security measures required to remain in the race to develop next-generation 5G networks in central and eastern Europe, Andy Purdy, chief security officer at Huawei Technologies USA, said. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo cautioned allies against using Huawei equipment this week during a trip to the region, saying it would make it more difficult for Washington to “partner alongside them”. US Vice President Mike Pence joined Pompeo on Wednesday on a trip to Poland, whose government is considering excluding Huawei from its future 5G network over concerns raised by the United States that the Chinese firm's technology could be used for spying, sources told Reuters in January. “The US government is very persistent, very determined and very forceful in communicating the messages about Huawei,” Purdy told  Reuters  on Wednesday. Huawei was ready to work with governments on any a...

 Money Life  Sucheta Dalal  February 14, 2019 For someone who cut his teeth in the family business as the suave, media face of a large and controversial group, Anil Ambani is an amazingly angry man these days . He is making enemies of the media, politicians and business partners with rare determination, even as the business empire that he wrested from his brother, Mukesh Ambani, after a horrendous public war, appears to be crumbling. The group has lost  68% in market value —or Rs47,300 crore—in the past 12 months.  Anil Ambani’s role in the Rafale jet purchase deal—which is now as controversial as Bofors—is where he seems to have gone completely ballistic. According to reports, the  defamation suits , filed against media houses, journalists and nine Congress Party functionaries, had added up to a phenomenal Rs75,000 crore in the past one year.  Apart from suing those who wrote about his role in the Rafale deal, there are defamati...

The Economic Times February 14, 2019 Rashmi Rajput Mumbai: The National Company Law Tribunal, Mumbai on Wednesday admitted Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) petitions for winding up the Indian Bullion Market Association (IBMA) and Juggernaut  Projects, which are being probed in connection with the alleged Rs 5,600-crore National Spot Exchange (NSEL) scam. IBMA is a subsidiary of NSEL and a stepdown subsidiary of 63 moons, NSEL’s parent.  Juggernaut is one of the exchange defaulters. SFIO is planning to file winding-up petitions against 15 defaulter companies, and 17 subsidiaries and associate companies of NSEL, sources in the know of the development told ET. “We have started with two companies. The rest will follow soon. This should be done within the next two to three months and would include both subsidiaries and  defaulters,”said an official in the know. “The petitions were admitted on Wednesday and now, the two parties have been given time t...

DNA February 14, 2019 Anjul Tomar Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance has criticised the credit rating agencies for overrating the debt-ridden Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) and has demanded probes into their role as well as of Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) and other institutional investors as part of an overall investigation into the IL&FS crisis. In its report titled, 'Strengthening of Credit Rating Framework', the parliamentary panel has sought a comprehensive inquiry into IL&FS, also covering the governance failures, indecision and indiscretion on the part of the IL&FS Board. The panel headed by former Congress minister Veerappa Moily tabled the report in Lok Sabha on Wednesday. "The Committee would recommend a comprehensive commission of enquiry into the whole gamut of the episode, which will inter-alia probe the role credit rating agencies that had over-rated the (IL&FS) entities sometime before t...