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The Indian Express June 12, 2019 Even as investigating agencies probe former top executives of IL&FS Group for alleged irregularities in the business affairs of the company, an internal investigation report of the group reveals an alleged nexus between one of them, Ramesh Bawa, former MD of IL&FS Financial Service (IFIN), and the Ansal Group. Bawa is currently in jail after the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) arrested him in April 2019 on the grounds of abusing his powers in IFIN through fraudulent conduct and in granting loans to entities which were not creditworthy, thereby causing wrongful loss to the company and its creditors. The Ansal Group and its promoters are facing charges of fraud in several cases. UP Real Estate Regulatory Authority (RERA) has received around 800 complaints against the Ansal group in Lucknow and over 2,000 in Noida and the group is involved in alleged fraud amounting to at least Rs 600 crore. Raising questions of propri...

The Asia Age June 11, 2019 After Pakistan has taken cognisable action against India-focussed terror groups, India may recognise its western neighbour’s changed stance. The change seems to have emerged after Pakistan was put on the “grey list” by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) a year ago, The Hindu reported. An official said Pakistan has seized 771 seminaries — educational institutions run by terror outfits—Lashkar-e-Taiba and its fronts, Jamaat-ud Dawa and Falah-i-Insaniyat, and the Jaish-e-Mohammad. “It is for the first time since the early 1990s that Pakistan has begun to take action against India-focussed terror groups and freeze their assets,” a senior government official said. The contemporary Kashmir insurgency dates back to the late 1980s and early 1990s. Pakistan started to act on terror outfits as it feared getting blacklisted by the FATF. FATF is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 by the Ministers of its member jurisdictions. ...

Firstpoost June 12, 2019 Prime Minister Narendra Modi's tour of the Maldives was his first international visit after having taken oath for the second time. His 2014 swearing-in ceremony featured leaders from SAARC nations as special invitees, while in 2019, it was the BIMSTEC leaders and those from Kyrgyzstan and Mauritius who were in attendance, underlining the importance the prime minister places on international relations. This is the fourth in a series of articles that looks at key foreign policy targets for the Modi government as it looks to the next five years. No sooner had the list of invitees for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's swearing-in ceremony on 30 May was made public, than two things became fairly apparent First, and most obvious, diplomatic overtures aimed at Pakistan seem to be off the table for the near future. While Afghanistan was also left off the invitees' list, not a lot needs to be read into it since bilateral relations remain warm an...

Financial Express June 11, 219 Days after the RBI removed charges for payments through NEFT and RTGS and asked banks to pass benefits to customers, a committee has been constituted to examine the charges and fees levied for using the Automated Teller Machines (ATM). The committee would submit a report within two months from the date of its first meeting, the RBI said in a statement. In the June bi-monthly monetary policy, the central bank had said that it would constitute a committee to review the ATM interchange fee structure with a view to boost the ATM deployment in the unbanked areas. A panel of all stakeholders, under the chairmanship of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Indian Banks’ Association (IBA), will review the ATM charges and fees, the RBI had said in its statement on developmental and regulatory policies. V G Kannan, Chief Executive, Indian Banks’ Association (Chairperson), Dilip Asbe Chief Executive Officer, National Payments Corporation of India (Member), ...

Hindustan Times  June 11, 2019 The real test on China’s commitment to tackling terrorism will come when it takes over the presidency of the 38-member Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on July 1. Chinese banker and current vice president Xiangmin Liu is expected to take over from Marshal Billingslea of the US as the president of the multilateral financial watchdog for a year. The appointment is significant as FATF will decide at its plenary meeting in October whether Pakistan will continue to remain in the “grey list” or be downgraded to the “black list”, which entails harsher financial sanctions. This decision will be taken under Chinese watch after the FATF assesses whether Pakistan has delivered on a 27-point action plan against terror financing and money laundering by September. Pakistan was placed in the grey list in June last year on the basis on consensus among FATF’s members for failing to do enough to counter terror financing and money laundering. I...

The Economic Times June 12, 2019 A massive illegal sand mining scam has been unearthed at the site of the world's largest statue. About 4.85 lakh metric tonnes of sand has been siphoned off from the land allotted to build the Tribal Museum at the Statue of Unity site in Kevadiya, which is 100 km from Vadodara, police said. After the police received a complaint from the land revenue department in Narmada district egarding a whole hillock meant for the construction of the museum to be dedicated to lesser-known tribal freedom fighters disappearing thanks to illegal sand mining, Gujarat police launched an investigation into the matter. While no FIR has yet been filed in the matter by the officials senior police officers said that the administration was waiting for definite names to come to light before including them in the First Information Report (FIR) which would then be more comprehensive.  This would be a better move than first filing an FIR against anonymous perso...

The Economic Times June 11, 2019 Researchers at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad have found that people living in a city with active coal-fired power plants and consuming local aquatic produce may have higher body levels of mercury. The researchers analysed the amounts of mercury in the hair of over 600 people in three cities in India. Their study has recently been reported in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, a public health journal.  Mercury is a neurotoxin that is distributed in the environment and is present in many products. The research team was headed by Asif Qureshi, associate professor, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Hyderabad. The IIT Hyderabad research team chose three cities for their analysis- Hyderabad, a city in the interior of the country with no specific local mercury source, Vasco da Gama, a city along the West Coast, with again, no specific mercury source but probably more fish-eaters, and Nellore, , a...

Reuters June 11, 2019 Thyssenkrupp and Tata Steel’s plan to form a landmark joint venture was rejected by EU antitrust regulators on Tuesday, concerned that the deal would have pushed up prices and reduced competition. The European Commission said the companies, which had looked to the deal as one way to tackle overcapacity and other challenges in the steel industry, had not done enough to allay its concerns. “Steel is a crucial input for many things we use in our everyday life, such as canned food and cars. Millions of people in Europe work in these sectors and companies depend on competitive steel prices to sell on a global level,” European Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said in a statement. The Commission said imports from third countries would not have been able to offset potential price hikes resulting from the deal. This is Vestager’s third veto this year, after she blocked Siemens’ bid for Alstom, and German copper company Wieland-Werke AG ...

The Hindu June 11, 2019  Protests against the Centre’s ban on GM crops have gained momentum in Maharashtra. Defying the ban, farmers of Akola district sowed genetically modified HTBT cotton on Monday. While the State machinery awaits lab reports on sown seeds, farmers across the State have extended support to the Shetkari Sanghatana’s ‘civil disobedience’ movement demanding permission to cultivate GM crops. ‘Lift the ban’ “It is high time the Centre took a call on GM crops. The ban on cultivating GM crops must be lifted as farmers have every right to sow the seeds they want to. It is not the scientists, but laypeople who are riling against GM technology. Farmers will not succumb to any pressure as they are reeling under various crises,” said former MP and Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana leader Raju Shetti. Shetkari Sanghatana President Anil Ghanwat said farmers across the State have joined the movement. “We will go ahead with planting HTBT cotton even if the Stat...

Financial Express June 11, 2019 Reliance Industries and its partner BP Plc of UK Tuesday announced investment sanction for development of their deepest natural gas discovery in the flagging KG-D6 block by 2022. Reliance-BP will develop the MJ, or D-55, gas find in sync with the previously approved projects to the develop two sets of discoveries in the block that will together add 30-35 million standard cubic metres per day of natural gas production in phases. MJ gas find, located about 2,000 metres directly below the currently producing Dhirubhai-1 and 3 (D1 and D3) fields in the KG-D6 block, is estimated to hold a minimum of 0.988 Trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of contingent resource. “MJ is the third of three new projects in the Block KG-D6 integrated development plan and its approval follows sanctions for the development of ‘R-Series’ deep-water gas field in June 2017 and for the Satellites Cluster in April 2018,” the company said in a press statement. Reliance-BP did not...

Live Mint June 11, 2019 Moody’s Investors Service on Tuesday placed Yes Bank Ltd’s Ba1 foreign currency issuer rating under review for a downgrade. The American credit rating agency said the review takes into account the ongoing liquidity pressures on Indian finance companies, which may negatively impact the credit profile of Yes Bank, given its sizeable exposure to weak companies in the sector. “In addition, Yes Bank had 7% direct exposure to the commercial and residential real estate sector as of the same date, which is also under pressure, because liquidity conditions have worsened for the real estate sector, just like with the HFCs and NBFCs," said Moody’s. In April, the bank had classified about ₹10,000 crore of its exposures, representing 4.1% of its total loans, under its stressed assets watch list. The rating agency says this could translate into non-performing loans over the next 12 months. “Taking into account the bank’s own disclosure of the str...