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Written by Shubhajit Roy, February 19, 2019 A day before Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman lands in Delhi for a bilateral visit, Riyadh signed off on a joint statement with Pakistan Monday where they said there was a need to avoid “politicisation of the UN listing regime” — an apparent reference to India’s efforts to list Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Maulana Masood Azhar as a “global terrorist”. Jaish has claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack in Pulwama, the single bloodiest attack in Kashmir in the last three decades of militancy. The issue of Azhar’s listing and how China has been blocking Delhi’s efforts to designate Azhar as a global terrorist — at Pakistan’s behest — is a key issue the Indian Foreign Secretary has been highlighting in his meetings with envoys from G-20 countries, including Saudi Arabia. There was no official response from the Ministry of External Affairs but the Saudi-Pakistan joint statement clearly belies India’s expectations. It puts ...

By: Huma Siddiqui | Published: February 18, 2019 With India–Argentina trade just touching $ 3 billion in the last ten years, leaders of both sides agree to increase their cooperation further to improve economic relations. The two countries inked ten agreements including in the defence, agriculture, space, pharmaceuticals, Between Prasar Bharati and its Counterpart, Antarctic cooperation, Work plan on Agriculture, Cooperation in IT and Nuclear energy Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Argentine President Mauricio Macri, accompanied by a high level official delegation and around 100 top industry representatives of the Argentinean companies held bilateral talks on Monday. The delegation level talks focussed on cooperation in the agriculture sector, trade and investments, defence, Lithium Mining and space cooperation. In his joint address to the media with the visiting leader, Modi said, that both agreed that terrorism is a huge threat to global peace and stability. Add...

PTI, Feb 18, 2019 Former Union Ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie as also activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan moved the Supreme Court Monday seeking initiation of perjury proceedings against central government officials for allegedly giving "false or misleading" information in a sealed cover in the high-profile Rafale case. The apex court on December 14 last year dismissed a clutch of PILs, including the one filed by Sinha, Shourie and Bhushan, saying that there was "no occasion to doubt" the decision-making process of the Centre in the procurement of 36 Rafale jets from France. The trio, which has filed the plea seeking review of the verdict, filed a fresh application under section 340 of the CrPC (Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) seeking perjury prosecution against the officials responsible for providing "false" and "misleading" information to the apex court in a sealed cover. The apex court had sought information from th...

A.S. Panneerselvan, FEBRUARY 18, 2019 A reader referred to my column, “Means and ends matter” (Sept. 22, 2014), and cited a tweet by the political commentator Abhijit Iyer-Mitra to question this paper’s investigation into the Rafale deal. My column was not only about what journalists report, but also about how they gather information. Mr. Iyer-Mitra’s provocative tweet was: “I have to register my STRONG PROTEST with @the_hindu. It’s one thing having an editorial line but cropping out photos to avoid inconvenient facts like here where @manoharparrikar clearly instructs the DS MoD to coordinate with PMO (courtesy @ANI) is BLATANTLY UNETHICAL.” As a staunch defender of the regime, Mr. Iyer-Mitra is free to arrive at his own conclusions from the given documents, but he cannot level charges against others without going through the documents in the public domain carefully. Jeff Jarvis, professor at Craig Newmark Journalism School, New York, wrote about journalists: “It is the sacre...

BusinessToday.In   New Delhi     Last Updated: February 18, 2019 India's security agencies have prepared a dossier nailing the culpability of Pakistan in the Pulwama terror strike, which will be presented to the terror financing watchdog this week, making a case for Pakistan's inclusion in the FATF's black list. It's going to be a worrying week for Pakistan with a smarting India pulling out all stops to get the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) to blacklist it. According to officials, our security agencies have prepared a dossier nailing the culpability of Pakistan in the Pulwama terror strike, which is the worst such attack in J&K in decades. This dossier will be handed over to the international terror financing watchdog seeking its blacklisting, officials told PTI on Saturday. Over 800 officials representing 205 jurisdictions, the IMF, UN, World Bank and others are currently in Paris for the ongoing FATF Week (February 17-22). What is FATF? ...

The Washington Post | Sarah Kaplan, The Washington Post | Updated: February 17, 2019 NEW YORK: On the ninth Friday of her strike, 13-year-old Alexandria Villasenor wakes to a dozen emails, scores of Twitter notifications, and good news from the other side of the planet: Students in China want to join her movement. Every week since December, the seventh-grader has made a pilgrimage to the United Nations Headquarters demanding action on climate change. She is one of a cadre of young, fierce and mostly female activists behind the "school strikes for climate" movement. On March 15, with the support of some of the world's biggest environmental groups, tens of thousands of kids in at least two dozen countries and nearly 30 U.S. states plan to skip school to protest. Their demands are uncompromising: Nations must commit to cutting fossil-fuel emissions in half in the next 10 years to avoid catastrophic global warming. And their message is firm: Kids are done wa...

Suhasini Haidar, NEW DELHI,  FEBRUARY 16, 2019 With U.S. sanctions threatening Iran’s main port of Bandar Abbas, the Iranian government is planning to promote the Chabahar port being developed by India in a major conference on February 26, highlighting the potential of the Indian Ocean port beyond India-Afghan trade alone. India is sending an official delegation to the event led by the Shipping Ministry, where about 200 guests from 35 countries have been invited, officials said. The event will also bring into focus a tightrope India must walk, with the U.S. tensions with Iran on one side, in order to achieve the triple aims of trade with Afghanistan, bypassing Pakistan and posing a counter to the China-Pakistan developed Gwadar port nearby. Focal point “The government of Iran wants to build Chabahar as the focal point with the entire coastline of 1,000 kilometres to be developed for oil refineries, petrochemical and steel factories, and other projects,” the newl...

Saurabh Sinha, Feb 18, 2019 Restructured Jet Airways will effectively be 51% government fund and PSU banks-owned. Sources say SBI-led lenders will convert Rs 600 crore loan into equity at Re 1, which will take their stake to 32%. National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), an investor-owned fund manager anchored by the government of India, will pick up 19.5% and invest Rs 1,400 crore, they add. Collectively, this will mean 51.5% control with PSU banks and NIIF.  It is learnt Abu Dhabi-based Etihad, which currently has 24% stake in Jet, will invest another Rs 1400 crore, limiting its stake at 24.9% and avoiding an open offer. Etihad is expected to pick up the additional equity at Rs 150 per share. Incidentally, the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is one of the investors in NIIF, which was set up for building infrastructure but is now bailing out the airline. Jet's remaining debt of Rs 6,000 crore will be restructured and converted into long term 10-year debt.  ...

February 16, 2019  Authorised dealers can offer foreign exchange derivative contracts up to $1 million to users - retail or non-retail - to hedge their exposure to the exchange rate of Rupee against a foreign currency on account of current and capital account transactions permissible under Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s draft circular on Hedging of foreign exchange risk by Residents and Non-Residents. Non-retail users Non-retail users include insurance companies, mutual funds, pension funds and other collective investment schemes, entities regulated by RBI, financial institutions, companies (meeting any one criteria: listed on an exchange in India or any Financial Action Task Force jurisdiction; networth of Rs 200 crore or its equivalent; the notional amount of the user’s outstanding foreign exchange derivatives exceeded $250 million or equivalent at any point in each of the previous four quarters). Non-retail user...

February 17, 2019 They call for a mechanism to reduce unwanted litigations, strict adherence to timelines under IBC To ensure the speedy resolution of cases under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), bankers have suggested, among others, the introduction of a mechanism to reduce unwanted litigation and strict adherence to the timelines under the code. As per the FICCI-IBA Survey of Bankers (for July-December 2018 period), to reduce unwanted litigation, provisions similar to DRT (Debt Recovery Tribunal) must be introduced, where a percentage of the loan outstanding is insisted upon while filing an appeal. The survey said the time norms under the IBC for admission, appointment of valuer and forensic auditors, as well as for the resolution of the company must be strictly followed. Need more NCLT benches To cater to the rising number of cases under the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), there is a need to improve the capacity by increasing staff and establis...

Radheshyam Jadhav  Pune | Updated on February 15, 2019 Tech must be used in a big way to ensure ryots get compensated quickly, says National Insurance Academy’s Srinivasan Changing rainfall patterns, droughts, flooding and geographical redistribution of pests and diseases have posed a major challenge before Indian agriculture. With the impact of climate change looming large on agricultural productivity, the insurance sector has a big role to play. However, the implementation of crop insurance scheme is mired in squabbles while the insurance sector has not penetrated deep into the Indian market. G. Srinivasan, Director, National Insurance Academy (NIA), Pune, shared his views on these issues. Excerpts: Climate variability and extremes are having an impact on agricultural production systems. How do you analyse the suitability of crop insurance schemes? Indian agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate changes and is largely dependent on the monsoon. Drought, unsea...