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The Telegraph, PTI, Reuters, May 06, 2019 AddThis Sharing Buttons The Narendra Modi-government’s pledge to cut oil import dependence by 10 per cent has been turned upside down as the country’s reliance on foreign oil has jumped under the NDA to a multi-year high of nearly 84 per cent, latest government data showed. Speaking at the “Urja Sangam” conference in March 2015, the Prime Minister had said India needed to bring down its oil import dependence from 77 per cent in 2013-14 to 67 per cent by 2022 when the country will celebrate its 75th year of independence. Further, the dependence can be cut to half by 2030, he had said. But with consumption growing at a brisk pace and domestic output remaining stagnant, India’s oil import dependence has risen to 83.7 per cent in 2018-19 from 82.9 per cent in 2017-18, according to the oil ministry’s Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell (PPAC). Import dependence in 2015-16 was 80.6 per cent, which rose to 81.7 per cent in th

The Economic Times, Rahul Tripathi, May 06, 2019 New Delhi: Indian agencies have reached out to their counterparts in Sri Lanka, seeking details on Easter Sunday bombers, who according to the Sri Lankan army chief visited Kashmir.  After Lieutenant General Mahesh Senanayake, Commander of the Army, claimed in an interview to the BBC that the bombers had visited Kashmir for some “sort of training”, India’s immigration authorities verified the records of Sri Lankan nationals who visited Kashmir but drew a blank. The Indian agencies contacted their counterparts in Sri Lanka after this, said people aware of the matter.  “We have verified the records of Sri Lankan nationals who visited Kashmir but none of them was found to be involved in the incident. The record which was verified by us was from last year to April 21, when the blasts took place,” a senior government official told ET on condition of anonymity. “Only a group of tourists from Sri Lanka had visited Jammu and Kashm

The Indian Express, Sandeep Singh, Sunny Verma, May 06, 2019 Continuing strong inflow of funds by Foreign Portfolio Investors and Reserve bank of India’s decision to conduct $10 billion dollar-rupee buy-sell swap auction between March and April 2019 has lifted the foreign exchange reserve to a near one-year high of $418.5 billion for the week ended April 26, 2019. Advertising Rising forex reserve is expected to further increase the import cover for the country as the finance ministry has, in its monthly economic report for March 2019, pointed that it resulted into an increase in the import cover from 9-months in October 2018 to 11-months in February 2019. According to the RBI data while the forex reserves stood at $399.1 billion for the week ended February 22, it has risen sharply by over $19 billion over the last two months. The reserves of $418.5 billion is the highest since May 4, 2018 when it stood at $418.94. Since February 1, 2019 FPIs have pumped in a net of

The Indian Express, ENS Economic Bureau, May 06, 2019 Of the over two dozen companies named by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its second list of large non-performing assets (NPAs), only three — Ruchi Soya Industries, EPC Constructions and ARGL — have come close to being resolved successfully through the corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) since August 2017, when the list is known to have been sent to banks. Advertising The second list involved companies with a total principal outstanding of Rs 1.28 lakh crore, according to a March 2018 report by CLSA. For these three accounts, their respective committees of creditors (CoCs) have selected successful bidders — Patanjali Ayurved for Ruchi Soya, Royale Partners for EPC Constructions and CarVal-Arcil for ARGL. While three other accounts from the list have been resolved by bankers, the procedure involved was beyond the purview of the insolvency law. State Bank of India (SBI) withdrew its insolvency petiti

The Indian Express, Vikarm S Mehta, May 06, 2019 One should not be surprised by US President Donald Trump’s imperious approach to the rest of the world. He has but one concern. To keep his domestic constituency intact and to win the 2020 elections. He may not even care if in the process, the “rest “go to hell in a hand basket”. His latest missive against Iran is manifestation of this attitude. The question that one must ask is what can the “rest” do to prevent such an outcome. On April 22, Mike Pompeo announced that the exemptions granted to seven countries (and Taiwan) from the US sanctions law, CAATSA (Countering American Adversaries through Sanctions Act) against Iran would be withdrawn on May 3. He said these countries would have to bring their imports of Iranian oil/gas down to zero within the next two weeks and the policy objective was to choke off the outlaw regimes’ principal source of revenue . Pompeo’s announcement should not have come as a surprise. The exemptions

The Economic Times, May 05, 2019 NEW Delhi: Union minister Harsh Vardhan has discredited the recent global reports claiming over one million deaths in India due to air pollution, saying such studies are only aimed at "causing panic".  The Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change is contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Chandni Chowk constituency in the national capital.  In an interview to PTI, the BJP leader said his government is working hard to tackle the problem of pollution and has been supporting the AAP-led Delhi government in this direction.  "We are doing our best to handle air pollution. The number of (achhe din) good days are consistently going up and bad days coming down," he said.  "Regarding the high-profile data of millions of deaths, I do not agree with that because pollution can cause premature illness and other things. Pollution does affect health, but to create such a panicky situation and say millions of peop