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The Guardian, By Amrit Dhillon, June 19, 2019 Authorities in Chennai have been criticised for failing to deal with a crippling water shortage that has brought the Indian city to crisis point, leaving taps dry in homes and forcing schools, offices and restaurants to close as temperatures soar. The four reservoirs supplying the bulk of the city’s drinking water have completely dried up, leading the Chennai Metro Water to cut the water it provides by about 40%. The crisis in India’s sixth largest city comes as the country struggles to deal with a heatwave that has caused hundreds of deaths, with 184 people killed just in the eastern state of Bihar. Temperatures reached 48C near the airport in Delhi last week and above 50C in Rajasthan. The water shortage in Chennai started several weeks ago and Madras’s high court has criticised the Tamil Nadu state government for inaction. The court accused the government on Tuesday of waiting passively for the arrival of the monsoon in...

Hwnews.in,  by  PTI June 19, 2019 The Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) on Wednesday rejected the claims of former CEA Arvind Subramanian regarding over-estimation of GDP growth after 2011, saying his analysis ignores data on services and agriculture and shows blind trust in a private firm CMIE. In a paper released by EAC-PM, India’s GDP estimation methodology stands at par with its global standing as a major and responsible economy. Primary contributors of the paper are economists Bibek Debroy, Rathin Roy, Surjit Bhalla, Charan Singh, Arvind Virmani. Last week, the advisory body had said it would issue a point-to-point rebuttal of the Subramanian’s research paper. In a research paper, Subramanian, who stepped down last year, said India’s economic growth rate has been overestimated by around 2.5 percentage points between 2011-12 and 2016-17 due to a change in methodology for calculating GDP. Subramanian’s paper titled ‘India’s GDP Mis-estim...

 The Hindu Business Line, Updated on  June 16, 2019   Published on  June 16, 2019 With farmers’ groups forcing the issue, the Centre needs to decide fast, either way. As in 2001, India has reached another inflexion point in its policy on GM crops. At that time, Hyderabad-based Navbharat Seeds distributed illegal Bt cotton seeds in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat, arguably putting the Centre under pressure to legalise Bt cotton, produced by Mahyco-Monsanto, in March 2002. This year, 1,500 farmers in Maharashtra, under the banner of Shetkari Sangathana, staged a symbolic protest by planting the ‘illegal’ herbicide tolerant variety of Bt cotton ( BusinessLine , June 10), all but confirming reports that this variety, which is unaffected by applications of the controversial weedicide glyphosate, is being grown in cotton-producing areas. It has also come to light that Bt brinjal is being illegally cultivated in Haryana. In both instances, it is clear that farmers ...

The Tribune,  By   salman siddiqui June 19,2019 Foreign investment in different productive sectors of the economy, like construction and power, fell to half at $1.6 billion in first 11 months of the outgoing fiscal year 2018-19. Foreign direct investment (FDI) stood at $3.16 billion in the same period of previous fiscal year, the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) reported on Tuesday. Pakistan Business Council (PBC) Chief Executive Officer Ehsan Malik said the drop in foreign investment came in the wake of unwelcome environment in Pakistan. “In the current circumstances, the investment, whether foreign or local, will remain restricted,” he said. Authorities failed to facilitate both domestic and foreign investors, Malik remarked. “Investors have been waiting for months and years to get utility connections. For example, Lucky Cement is ready to set up a KIA vehicle production plant at Port Qasim, but has been forced to wait for utilities for a long time,” he said...

The Hindu, June 18, 2019 SEBI has allowed exchanges to launch futures trading in commodity indices. The move will further facilitate mutual fund and institutional participation in commodity exchanges. Bourses willing to start commodity indices futures trading has to submit last three years data of the index constructed along with data on monthly volatility, roll-over yield for the month and monthly return while seeking approval from SEBI, the regulator said in a statement on Tuesday. The trading hours of index futures will be in line with that of index constituents’ futures trading. However, on expiry day, the index futures contract will expire at 5 pm. The contract size should be at least  ₹ 5 lakh and maximum tenor of the contracts will be 12 months. Stock exchanges will decide on the number of contracts, duration of contracts and launch calendar as per market requirements, said SEBI. Sanjit Prasad, MD and CEO of Indian Commodity Exchange (ICEX), said permitting commo...