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The Telegraph June 28, 2019 India’s food safety regulator has proposed new labelling and display guidelines that will require the dates of manufacture and the dates of expiry to appear next to each other on packaged food products.  The proposal from the Food Safety Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) seeks to eliminate the practice of printing manufacturing dates and expiry or “best-before” dates at different places on the pack labels, which makes it difficult for the consumers to see both at a single glance. On myriad packaged food products now sold in India — from jam, tomato ketchup, tea and coffee to oats and soft drinks — the manufacturing and best-before dates appear at different places.  The proposal is part of what FSSAI officials have described as a revised set of labelling and display rules that will replace regulations issued in 2011 and are intended to “encourage consumers to make healthier food choices”. The regulations, which have been released f...

The Hindu June 27, 2019 In September 2016, India dragged the U.S. to WTO’s dispute settlement mechanism over America’s domestic content requirements and subsidies provided by eight states in the renewable energy sector. A WTO dispute resolution panel has ruled in favour of India in a case against the U.S. saying that America’s domestic content requirements and subsidies provided by eight of its states in the renewable energy sector are violative of global trade norms. The panel concluded in its ruling that “the measures” of the US “are inconsistent” with certain provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the World Trade Organisation (WTO) said in a statement on June 27. It said the U.S. has “nullified or impaired benefits accruing to India under that agreement”. GATT aims to promote trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers like customs duties. The ruling stated that 10 measures implemented by the U.S. pertaining to renewable energy secto...

The Hindu  June 27, 2019 The total funds held by Indians with Swiss banks stood at a record high of CHF 6.5 billion (₹23,000 crore) at 2006-end, but came down to nearly one-tenth of that level in about a decade.  Money parked by Indian individuals and enterprises in Swiss banks, including through India-based branches, fell by nearly 6% in 2018 to 955 million Swiss francs (about ₹6,757 crore) to hit its second-lowest level in over two decades, Swiss National Bank (SNB) data showed on June 27. Aggregate funds of all foreign clients of Swiss banks also fell by over 4% to CHF 1.4 trillion (nearly ₹99 lakh crore) in 2018, as per the annual banking statistics released by the Zurich-based central banking authority of Switzerland.  However, the ‘locational banking statistics’ of the Bank for International Settlement (BIS), which the Indian and Swiss governments had said last year was a more reliable measure for deposits by Indian individuals in Swiss banks, showed a g...

Indian Express June 28, 2019 The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) has asked the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe two Reliance ADAG firms — Reliance Infrastructure Ltd and Rosa Power Supply Co Ltd — in connection with the alleged overvaluation of imported Indonesian coal between 2010 and 2015, sources told The Indian Express. Sources said the DRI, in a letter dated December 21, 2018, requested the CBI to take “appropriate action under law” against Reliance Infrastructure and Rosa Power for allegedly siphoning about Rs 386 crore through overvaluation of at least 73 consignments of imported Indonesian coal. While the CBI is yet to register a preliminary enquiry in the case, sources said it could look into violations of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as the DRI has alleged that artificial inflation of imported coal increases the landed cost of coal, which is a primary fuel in coal-fired thermal power plants, and therefore leads to an increase in power ta...

The Telegraph June 28, 2019 NBFCs with strong fundamentals have weathered the stress on the sector to effectively manage their liquidity, though funding costs have grown, the Reserve Bank of India said in its financial stability report released on Thursday.  However, the central bank expressed concern over their credit appraisal processes given the fact that loans have been concentrated in four segments in the consumer credit category — auto loan, home loans, loans against properties and personal loans. “Given the substantial growth rate in exposure to these sectors (consumer credit), a possible concern is dilution in credit standards. A look at the evolution in delinquency levels in each of the segments shows that NBFCs as a group have been leading delinquency levels in almost all the sub-segments of consumer credit, except in loans against property where it stands a close second to PSU banks,” the report said. The recent developments in the NBFC sector have led to...

The Telegraph June 26, 2019 An Indian biotechnology company on Wednesday announced its intention to conduct large-scale clinical trials and commercialise a Swedish-designed cholera vaccine to help fight persistent but unspoken outbreaks of cholera in India and elsewhere in the world. The Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech signed a pact with the New Delhi-based Hilleman Laboratories to accelerate the development, clinical trials and manufacture of the new candidate oral cholera vaccine mainly for supply to low and middle-income countries. Senior Bharat and Hilleman executives said the initiative would seek to address a global shortage of cholera vaccines amid the persistence of outbreaks in several Indian states and across Africa. Cholera is a bacterial infection that causes diarrhoea and can kill untreated patients within hours. Patients diagnosed in time and treated with antibiotics and other measures recover. In India, the risk of cholera is the highest in Bengal, whi...

The Hindu June 27, 2019 Terror groups such as Islamic State and al-Qaeda and lingering conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq were products of American adventurism in West and South Asia, Iran said on Thursday. It was responding to to allegations of terrorism made by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday here. In a strongly worded statement, Iran said the U.S.’s misunderstanding of the ground reality had hurt the U.S.’s ties with the rest of the world and called for dialogue on difficult issues. “The rise of extremist groups like Taliban, Al-Qaeda, ISIS are contemporary demonstrations of U.S. adventurism. The crises in our region, including in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Yemen, are rooted in the occupation, illegal military interventions, hegemonic and social engineering policies of the United States,” said the statement issued by a spokesperson at the Embassy of Iran. Mike Pompeo, during his press conference with Union External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, ...