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The Indian Express,  Written by   George Mathew   | June 17, 2019 India’s push to build a less-cash economy seems to be gathering momentum with the central bank recording a phenomenal growth in digital transactions till March 2019 and setting an ambitious target to push up the volumes by four times by 2021. Advertising Total digital transactions in volume terms recorded a growth rate of 58.8 per cent during 2018-19, on top of a growth of 50.4 per cent during 2017-18, the Reserve Bank of India said in a report. The RBI says digital transactions in value terms grew by 19.5 per cent during 2018-19, compared to the growth of 22.2 per cent during 2017-18. Though the bulk of digital transactions in value terms (82.8 per cent) are accounted for by RTGS transactions, retail component of digital transactions (excluding RTGS customers and interbank transactions) witnessed a volume growth of 59.3 per cent during 2018-19, as against 50.8 per cent growth in the p...

Sachin Parashar  | TNN | Updated: Jun 17, 2019  An agreement China signed with the Maldives to build an observatory in the Indian Ocean is likely to be scrapped, as India’s relations with its maritime neighbour enter a purple patch following the exit of former Maldivian president Abdulla Yameen. Top local government sources in Male told ToI that the agreement Yameen signed with China in 2017, which raised a security alarm in India, is ``not on the table’’. Titled Protocol on Establishment of Joint Ocean Observation Station, the agreement was meant to allow China to construct an observatory at Makunudhoo, the westernmost atoll of the Maldives in the north. The finalisation of the agreement had set off concerns in India that it would allow China a vantage point of an important Indian Ocean shipping route through which many merchant and other ships pass. It would also be located uncomfortably close to Indian waters. Then foreign secretary S Jaishankar, who is now fore...

Bloomberg, 16 June Bloomberg) --President Donald Trump, gearing up for the official start of his 2020 campaign, warned that the U.S. would face an epic stock market crash if he’s not reelected. “If anyone but me takes over,” Trump told his 61 million Twitter followers on Saturday, “there will be a Market Crash the likes of which has not been seen before!” Trump officially starts his 2020 campaign on Tuesday with a rally in Orlando, Florida, and appears to be road-testing some of the themes he’ll be touching on in the next 18 months, including stoking fear of a market meltdown. “Tuesday will be a Big Crowd and Big Day,” he said in another tweet. The president has claimed several times this year and as recently as Friday in a “Fox & Friends” interview that the U.S. stock market would be 5,000 to 10,000 points higher if the Federal Reserve hadn’t raised interest rates four times in 2018. The Trump Economy is setting records, and has a long way up to go....However, if anyone but ...

The Tribune,  Jun.16,2019  The Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Sunday that it had not finalised the size of financial support to Pakistan, watering down the government’s claim that the Manila-based lender would provide $3.4 billion to the country in budgetary support. The country office of the ADB had to issue a rare rebuke on a holiday after two cabinet ministers claimed that the lender would extend $3.4 billion to Pakistan. The government is desperately looking for foreign loans, as it has so far failed to take measures that could have ensured an increase in non-debt creating inflows. “These discussions are ongoing and the details of the plans as well as the volume of the ADB’s financial support, once finalised, will be contingent upon the approval of the ADB management and its board of directors,” Xiaohong Yang, the ADB’s country director for Pakistan, said in a statement. A day earlier, Federal Minister for Planning and Development Khusro ...

Firstpost,    Vinay Kaura   Jun 17, 2019  Pakistan has reportedly shared an intelligence input with Indian authorities about a potential terror attack in Kashmir. The input about al-Qaeda’s plan to carry out the terror attack in South Kashmir’s Pulwama district, either before or during the Amarnath Yatra, to avenge the killing of terrorist Zakir Musa has prompted a high alert in the Kashmir Valley. Musa, who was the chief of a local terror group – Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind – affiliated to al-Qaeda, was killed recently in an encounter with security forces engaged in counter-insurgency operations. Before forming his own terror group, Musa was previously heading Hizbul Mujahideen, following the fateful elimination of terrorist Burhan Wani in 2016. It would be premature to call the intelligence sharing a ‘game changer’ in India-Pakistan ties marked by decades of suspicion and hostility. And this is not the first reported case of Pakistan sharing intellige...

The Hindu Business Line,  K Ram Kumar   Mumbai |   June 16, 2019    The Finance Ministry has sought information from public sector banks (PSBs) on their expectation of recoveries and provisions held in respect of stressed accounts admitted in the National Company Law Tribunals (NCLTs) across the country. This exercise comes in the backdrop of hectic consultations the Finance Ministry is holding with various stakeholders for the upcoming Budget to be presented on July 5. The Ministry is expected to take a call on setting aside funds for recapitalisation of public sector banks for FY2020 based on the aforesaid information. The information could also prove useful to beef up the functioning of NCLTs, including the possibility of setting up dedicated tribunals for fast-track hearing in corporate insolvency resolution cases where the amounts involved are big, say  ₹ 500 crore and above. If the Ministry finds that PSBs expect higher recove...

Foreign Policy, BY ROBBIE GRAMER ,   LARA SELIGMAN,    JUNE 14, 2019 A day after two oil tankers were attacked in the Gulf of Oman, some U.S. allies were reluctant to join the Trump administration in forthrightly blaming Iran for the incident as conflicting accounts emerged, adding an element of uncertainty to the rising tensions between Washington and Tehran. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration was quick to blame Iran for the Thursday attacks, which targeted a Norwegian-owned and a Japanese-owned vessel carrying petroleum products in the strategic chokepoint through which much of the world’s oil travels. The U.S. Defense Department released black-and-white video footage purportedly demonstrating that Iran is behind the attack, but some of the United States’ allies have held back from explicitly blaming Iran so far—including Japan and Norway. Link- https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/06/14/some-us-allies-balk-at-blaming-iran-for-tanker-attack-gulf-...

The Indian Express,  The trade war between the United States and China has opened a window of opportunity for India to record additional exports in case of at least 354 items — ranging from capital goods to base metals — worth billions of dollars, according to a new Commerce Ministry study. Advertising Of the 774 American tariff lines (items) on which China has imposed extra duties, India can ship out more and replace the US, especially in 151 items, the study suggests. In these 774 items, China’s imports from the US stand at an annual $20.4 billion. However, while India exports these items worth $32.8 billion to the world, it ships out only $2.9 billion to China. This means there is a huge scope for India to replace the US. However, as has been pointed out by analysts, benefits to India are contingent on greater competitiveness as well as its ability to scale up production to meet higher demand. Similarly, of the 531 tariff lines on which the US has impo...

The Indian Express,  The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday claimed that Kashmir separatist leader Masarat Alam, who was arrested last month in a case of terror funding, has confessed that Hurriyat leaders received funds from Pakistan to foment trouble in the Valley. According to the agency, former chief of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was among those Alam named. Advertising “Masarat Alam, the so-called poster boy of stone pelters and violent agitations in Kashmir Valley, during his custodial interrogation, revealed that Pakistan-based agents route funds through hawala operators, which were transferred to separatist leaders, including Syed Shah Geelani, Chairman APHC(G),” an NIA statement said. “Alam also revealed that there are rifts in the Hurriyat conference regarding collection and use of funds,” the NIA statement said. The central investigating agency is already probing Geelani in connection with a terror funding case involving La...