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The Times of India April 23, 2019 India will stop importing crude oil from Iran following the US move to end sanction waivers, and will use alternate supply sources such as Saudi Arabia to make up for the lost volumes, top officials and industry sources said on Tuesday. The Trump administration on Monday decided not to renew waiver that let countries like India buy Iranian oil without facing US sanctions.  "Until the waivers are not restored, I don't think India can buy oil from Iran. We will stop importing oil from Iran," a top official said.  New Delhi is likely to press the US government for continuation of oil import beyond its expiry on May 2 in talks scheduled later this month, he said. "But purchases cannot be made in anticipation. We will not be importing any oil from Iran."  India was the second biggest buyer of Iranian crude oil after China. It bought some 24 million tonnes of crude oil from Iran in the fiscal ended March 31 (20...

The Economic Times Kalyan Parbat April 23, 2019 Reliance Jio Infocomm may be pushed to raise prices in this financial year as it needs to spend about Rs 9,000 crore a year on its long-term capacity leasing deals with special purpose vehicles (SPVs) created to hold its demerged fibre and towers assets, coupled with the capital raising plans of rivals Vodafone Idea (VIL) and Bharti Airtel, said analysts.  “The likelihood of Jio raising prices is higher today than it was six to nine months ago, which has positive implications for incumbent peers, particularly, Vodafone Idea,” JP Morgan said in a note to clients seen by ET. The US brokerage said investors increasingly believe Vodafone Idea and Airtel’s capital raising plans, signalling their capacity to fight, may prompt Jio to rethink its pricing stance, especially on whether it can afford to keep expanding its balance sheet investments for the next two three years.  VIL and Airtel plan to raise about Rs 25,000 ...

The Economic Times Dipanjan Roy Choudhury April 23, 2019 China may agree on "sustainable financial support" for projects under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in order to assuage concerns of countries including India that BRI may drive several partner nations into a debt trap.  Ahead of the second edition of the BRI summit – which India is boycotting, as it did the first one – people aware of the matter told ET that China may agree on “sustainable financial support for projects and principles agreed by the United Nations General Assembly on debt sustainability” in a joint communique at the summit, which will be held for three days from April 25.  The summit is expected to be attended by 37 heads of state and governments even as worldwide unease exists over the BRI’s objectives.  Along with China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a number of BRI projects are controversial. “Of the six roads in BRI projects, the Laos-Cambodia-Vietnam is designated as on...

The Economic Times Rachel  Chitra APR 23, 2019 Consumers can now give standing instructions to banks online, mandating them to make recurring payments for a wide range of services like payments to insurance companies and into mutual fund schemes. Seven banks have gone live on the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI’s) platform, allowing customers to provide e-mandate through netbanking, while Kotak Mahindra Bank enables customers to do this using a debit card as well. In the past, the process of activating standing instructions involved customers providing a paper-based authorisation under the electronic clearing services (ECS). The National Automated Clearing House (NACH) digitised the process but still required the use of paper and signature verification. Banks did provide an eSign facility briefly but this was discontinued with the Supreme Court restricting the use of Aadhaar. The other banks that are live on netbanking are Yes Bank, IDFC Bank, Axi...

ThePrint COL. VINAYAK BHAT (RETD)    18 April, 2019 India’s successful  anti-satellite (ASAT) missile test  on 26 March, labelled Mission Shakti, made it a member of an exclusive club of four nations with such capabilities. Days before India’s ASAT test,  ThePrint reported  that China has recently made numerous forays in space denial weapons, and also deployed systems that can dazzle, disable or destroy satellites. This has even prompted the US government to  take action to harden its infrastructure  against the EMP or electromagnetic pulse threat from China. Earlier this month,  Jane’s Defence Weekly  reported a Chinese naval platform testing laser weapons, albeit of a lower intensity. Now, satellite imagery accessed by ThePrint shows China has indeed moved on to testing and weaponising its naval platforms for space denial. Icebreaker ships China previously had two types of icebreakers for clearing ice around the Ye...

The Print MAHUA VENKATESH   23 April, 2019 India’s crude output fell 4 per cent from April through February in fiscal 2018-19 to 31.36 million metric tonnes (MMT), but this isn’t a first. Under the Modi government, which had promised to raise output and reduce oil imports, crude oil production has actually seen a steady fall. From 37.5 MMT in 2014-15, when the Modi government came to power, India’s total production dropped to 35.7 MMT in 2017-18 — a 5 per cent drop, despite NDA’s promises to the contrary to make India more self-sufficient in oil production. In the same period, India’s crude oil imports rose from 202.85 MMT in 2015-16 to steadily increase to about 217 MMT, said a statistics  website . The 6 per cent rise in imports came even as the Modi government chalked out a roadmap in 2015 to bring down crude oil imports by 10 per cent by 2022. According to data published by Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell, under the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, ...

The Times of India April 23, 2019 LILONGWE: Malawi will on Tuesday spearhead large scale pilot tests for the world’s most advanced experimental malaria vaccine in a bid to prevent the disease that kills hundreds of thousands across Africa each year. After over three decades in development and almost $1 billion in investment, the cutting-edge trial will be rolled out in Malawi’s capital Lilongwe this week and then in Kenya and Ghana next week. It aims to immunise 1,20,000 children aged two years and under to assess the effectiveness of the pilot vaccine and whether the delivery process is feasible. Four successive doses must be administered on a strict timetable for it to work. Trade-named Mosquirix, the drug has been developed by British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline in partnership with the PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative. It passed previous scientific testing — including five years of clinical trials on 15,000 people in seven countries — and was approved ...

The Express Tribune Shahbaz Rana April 23, 2019 Pakistan has decided to keep the terms of foreign commercial loans secret, in a bid to hide details of Chinese loans, which may further deepen the transparency concerns. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government has dropped the details of $3.7 billion commercial loans from the Statistical Supplement of the Pakistan Economic Survey 2017-18, shows the document of the Ministry of Finance. Out of $3.7 billion loans, China had provided $2.2 billion worth of commercial loans. The decision raises fears that the government would also not disclose the terms of $2.54 billion Chinese foreign commercial loans in the upcoming Economic Survey of Pakistan for fiscal year 2018-19. China had disbursed the $2.54 loans last month to stabilise the official foreign exchange reserves. The China Development Bank gave $2.24 billion in short-term loan while the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) also disbursed $300 million...

Financial express Sushruth Sunder   April 23, 2019 After PE giant Blackstone snapped up Essel Propack in a Rs 2,157 crore deal, chairman Ashok Goel of the specialty packaging firm said that the sale offers good value. Notably, global investment giant Blackstone announced that it will pick up a 51% stake from Ashok Goel Trust at Rs 134 per share and will eventually do an open offer to acquire an additional 26% stake at Rs 139.19 per share. Based on the open offer subscription, the purchase price is set to be between Rs 2,157 crore and Rs 3,211 crore (or, approximately $310-462 million). The sale is expected to complete in the coming months, subject to customary closing conditions and approvals. We take a look at key synergies from the deal. Blackstone’s emerging market consumption bet Investment giant Blackstone is betting on growth in consumption in emerging markets. In an interview to CNBC TV18, Blackstone said that growth from new emerging markets will benefit Essel...

The Economic Times April 23, 2019 Data is becoming central to people and governments across the world and data empowerment architecture in India would benefit all segments of the economy, said Nandan Nilekani, cofounder and chairman, InfosysNSE 1.13 %. Nilekani was addressing FICCI members at the National Executive Committee Meeting on ‘Digital India and its Impact on Economy and Industry’ in Bengaluru.  Nilekani said Aadhaar has been a great enabler as a digital identity and India’s digital infrastructure would play a major role in reviving the economy. He said the country has witnessed dramatic transformation through Aadhaar-based eKYC and online payments.  Once data becomes the basis for decision-making in many sectors, you will see a big change...Aadhaar was developed as the universal electronic KYC and this has been a very powerful feature. Today, both in the banking and telecom sector, the customer acquisition has been dramatically streamlined and sped up...

The Wire April 23, 2019 The relationship between India and the US has, for some time, been delicate on the trade front. On Monday, the Trump administration removed the waiver it had granted India to buy Iranian oil, a decision that will send our local fuel prices northwards. The US wishes to freeze the Iranian economy because it fears that Iran is continuing its nuclear weapons programme. Be that as it may, the refusal to renew the Iran waiver comes on the heels of the decision to stop benefits under the Generalised System of Preferences to India – a decision that will harm the American economy much more than it will affect New Delhi. The India situation is merely a microcosm of how the US’s economy is suffering due to Trump’s tariff wars with countries like China and others.   The battle started with President Donald Trump imposing tariffs on a series of imports from China, other than on Canada, Mexico and the European Union. The US alleged that Beijin...