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Hindustan times June 26, 2019 One of India’s largest cities, Chennai, is dealing with a crippling crisis: It has run out of water. In the middle of a particularly hot summer, the four lakes that supply the capital of the southern state of Tamil Nadu have dried up; together they contain just 1% of the volume they did last year. Residents don’t have enough water to drink, bathe or wash clothes. People are working from home; malls have closed their bathrooms; and restaurants have shut their doors. The natural instinct is to blame the situation on climate change and, indeed, the last monsoon’s rains were especially weak. While that’s certainly played a role, however, Chennai’s is largely a man-made disaster – one that more Indian metropolises are soon to suffer no matter the weather. According to a study by the federal government think tank NITI Aayog, 21 Indian cities will run out of groundwater by next year, including the capital New Delhi and the information technology

Hindustan times June 26, 2019 Alcohol and tobacco can be more harmful to individuals and the society than recreational drugs like cannabis and ecstasy that are governed by disproportionately strict regulations, according to a report released by the Global Commission on Drug Policy on Tuesday. Of the four psychoactive substances -- alcohol, heroin, crack cocaine, methamphetamine -- that cause the highest levels of harm, two are regulated as the most dangerous substance, one as moderately dangerous. Alcohol is not subject to any international regulation. Of the four substances with lowest levels of harm, two were regulated as most dangerous, too, according to the report. This skewed regulatory framework leads to economic losses with a high number of people incarcerated and people in need not having access to opioids. “I see the number of people locked in prison because of drug use or possession and that is not how people need to be treated. When I see people without acce

Business Standard June 26, 2019 Currency notes in circulation stood at Rs 21.71 trillion at May-end 2019, showing an increase of more than 22 per cent over the pre- demonetisation  level. According to a written reply given by  Finance Minister  Nirmala Sitharaman  in the  Rajya Sabha  on Tuesday, the notes in circulation as of November 4, 2016, were Rs 17,74,187 crore, which have now increased to Rs 21,71,385 crore as of May 31, 2019. The government had decided to demonetise old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes on November 8, 2016. Sitharaman said the notes in circulation had grown at an average growth rate of 14.51 per cent year-on-year since October 2014. "As actual notes in circulation on May 31, 2019 are only Rs 21,713.85 billion, the demonetisation, followed by  digitalisation  and reduction of cash use in  informal economy  has succeeded in reducing the notes in circulation by as much as Rs 3,408.68 billion," she said. The demonetisati

Dawn June 26, 2019 KARACHI: The United Kingdom has increased its funding support to Pakistan from £400 million pounds to £1 billion and this is an important statement of our confidence and commitment for trade with Pakistan, said Simon Penney, Her Majesty’s Trade Commissioner (HMTC) for the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The words reiterate a commitment made between Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi last week in which the UK agreed “to double the available support for exports to Pakistan”.  “What this means in practice is that part of that money can be used to help UK companies reduce the risk of doing business in other countries. From Pakistan’s point of view, the most important feature of it is the money the UK will make available to Pakistani companies and projects,” said Penney, currently on his first visit to Pakistan, during a meeting with journalists at the British High Commission. He was accompanied by UK Deputy High Com

Firstpost June 26, 2019 Yatish Yadav This is a classic case of swindling of taxpayers money by bank officials that took place during the erstwhile regime of Mayawati and Akhilesh Yadav, which was buried in the files until now. A recent probe has unearthed that at least 40 of the total 50 cooperative banks in Uttar Pradesh have been hit by fraud involving various modus operandi like forging loan amounts, siphoning of subsidy money from beneficiary accounts in connivance with bank officials, fictitious fixed deposits and embezzlement of money recovered from the accounts declared as Non-Performing Assets (NPAs). Cooperative and regional rural banks play a crucial role in the rural financial system of the country and are expected to take care of the expanding and diverse credit needs of agriculture and rural development. More than 50 percent of the rural credit is disbursed by the cooperative banks and the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is respon

Indian Express June 26, 2019 According to the report, while cash-flow loans are short-tenure, they don’t need borrower assessments or project assessments and are tied to future cash-flows. Making A pitch for cash-flow based lending to ease the credit gap faced by MSMEs, the report of the Expert Committee on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises under the chairmanship of UK Sinha said that while the availability of digital public infrastructure such as GST and India Stack make it a possible, such form of lending will not only power the growth of MSMEs but also help create “jobs on the ground”. “A combination of Digital Public Infrastructure, progressive regulation and new market forces has the potential to energise the MSME Lending Sector. Emergence of a digital lending value chain will provide fast turnaround and easy accessibility for MSME borrowers and use new data and credit scoring algorithms to provide new types of risk-adjusted lending products. This infrastructure

Indian Express June 26, 2019 The move comes amidst reports that vast tracts of cropland had been sown with Bt brinjal, which is illegal to cultivate in India in the absence of a go-ahead from the Ministry of Environment and Forests. The government has constituted a 12-member expert committee to carry out an on-the-spot inspection of brinjal fields in Haryana to verify whether unapproved varieties of genetically-modified Bt brinjal were being grown in the state. The move comes amidst reports that vast tracts of cropland had been sown with Bt brinjal, which is illegal to cultivate in India in the absence of a go-ahead from the Ministry of Environment and Forests. The Field Inspection and Scientific Evaluation Committee (FISEC), constituted by the Environment Ministry on June 21, has been asked to verify these reports of illegal cultivation through an on-the-spot inspection of fields in Haryana and “neighbouring states”. The committee, led by K Veluthambi, co-chairperson o

Indian Express June 26, 2019 A decades-old legal dispute between India and Pakistan over around 35 million pounds belonging to the Nizam of Hyderabad at the time of Partition in 1947 and deposited in a London bank account has reached an important stage in the UK High Court.  The Nizam’s descendants, Prince Mukarram Jah – the titular eighth Nizam of Hyderabad – and his younger brother Muffakham Jah, have joined hands with the Indian government in the legal battle against the Pakistan government over the funds lying with NatWest Bank plc in London. The dispute revolves around 1,007,940 pounds and nine shillings that were transferred in 1948 from the then Nizam of Hyderabad to the high commissioner in Britain of the newly-formed Pakistan.  That amount has since grown into millions as the Nizam’s ancestors, supported by India, claim it belongs to them and Pakistan counter-claims that it is rightfully theirs.  “His Exalted Highness Nizam VIII and his younger brother have waited

Indian Express June 26 2019 Empirical evidence shows that developing economies have a positive long-term correlation between savings and growth. In a fast-growing economy like India, investments generally outpace domestic savings, and the gap gets funded by foreign savings. This shows up as current account deficit. Maintaining adequate domestic savings, therefore, is essential to sound macroeconomic management — more so in today’s challenging global environment. Unfortunately, Indians have been saving less. Worse, our rate of savings has fallen sharply. The overall savings rate (households, public sector and private sector), or the proportion of gross domestic savings in the GDP, plunged to 30.5 per cent in fiscal 2018 from a peak of 36.8 per cent in fiscal 2008, rising marginally in the interim. It has been downhill since fiscal 2012. The external shock of the global financial crisis led to a sharp slowdown in public savings in fiscal 2009, with the government resorting to

Financial Express June 26, 2019 Reduction in fresh accretions to non-performing assets (NPAs), higher recoveries from existing stressed assets under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and a pick-up in credit growth should help shrink banks’ gross NPAs by 350 basis points to 8% by March 2020, Crisil said in a report on Tuesday.  According to the agency, public sector banks, which account for over 80% of the NPAs in the system, alone could see gross NPAs climb down over 400 bps to approximately 10.6% by March 2020, from a peak of 14.6% in March 2018. According to Krishnan Sitaraman, senior director, Crisil Ratings, “In fiscal 2019, write-offs, coupled with recoveries under IBC in key large stressed assets, played a critical role in reduction of NPAs. Further, after a gap of six years, the pace of NPA reduction is estimated to have overtaken that of fresh slippages for the banking system in fiscal 2019. Private banks, which have had fewer asset quality issues, should also witnes

Daily hunt June 25, 2019 Unaccounted wealth stashed abroad by Indians is estimated to be in the range of $216.48 billion to $490 billion between 1980 and 2010, the Standing Committee on Finance said in a report tabled in 17th Lok Sabha Budget session Monday. The Committee prepared the 73rd report, 'status of unaccounted income/wealth both inside and outside the country - a critical analysis (a preliminary report)' which was introduced in both the houses of parliament. The report on black money does not put out a final figure regarding the amount of the illicit funds stashed abroad or within in the country. The preliminary report was earlier presented to former Lok Sabha speaker Sumitra Mahajan on March 28, a copy of which was also uploaded on the Lok Sabha website following the directions of the committee. "In the past five years, the NDA government gave only slogans and no solid action was taken against black money," Veerappa Moily, Chairman of the standi