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THE TELEGRAPH JULY 01, 2019 The corporate profit-to-GDP ratio has the potential to reach around 5 per cent, provided it is supported by policies that promote corporate activities. Diversified financial services firm Motilal Oswal estimates that the ratio had peaked to 7.8 per cent in 2008 and since then has broadly been on a downward trajectory, reaching 3 per cent in 2018. “Corporate profit to GDP is a number which is tracked around the world. We do our estimates every quarter. That has come down to less than 2 per cent now,” said Raamdeo Agrawal, co-founder, joint managing director, Motilal Oswal Financial Services. Speaking at a session organised by the CFA Society India on Saturday, Agrawal said the tax revenue essential for government activities would increase if the corporate profit is at a high level. “The government wants water, houses, roads, hygiene for everybody. But tax revenue has to come. This will come only if corporate activities, employment and corpora

The Indian Express July 01, 2019 Nirupama Subramaniam As a term to denote an economic and strategic community, it has been in use among scholars of international relations and geopolitics since the first decade of this century, around the same time as China's rise. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar with visiting US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Delhi on June 26. Jaishankar said the point he made was that the Indo-Pacific is ‘for something, not against somebody’.  The term “Indo-Pacific” has featured during the just-concluded G20 summit as well as during US Secretary of State Michael Pompeo’s recent visit to Delhi. Geographically, the Indo-Pacific refers to the Indian and the Pacific Oceans between the east coast of Africa and the American west coast and their several littoral countries. As a term to denote an economic and strategic community, it has been in use among scholars of international relations and geopolitics since the first decade of this centur

The Indian Express July 01, 2019 Editorial PM Modi’s engagement with world leaders underlined pragmatism and resilience of ties, disproved narratives of crisis. Modi’s meeting with the US President, Donald Trump, underlined the essential resilience of India’s strategic partnership with the United States. This year’s annual G-20 summit held in Osaka, Japan, offered an expansive stage for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to kickstart his second international innings. If his first outing after the general elections — which gave him a massive mandate — to Maldives and Sri Lanka was about India’s maritime neighbourhood, the three-day sojourn in Osaka provided an occasion to engage many of his global peers in multiple formats and address burning international questions. Launched in 2008 to cope with the global financial crisis, the G-20 has now become a forum for the discussion of all major international issues and a venue for bilateral exchanges between the world’s top leaders

The Indian Express July 02, 2019 ENS Economic Bureau Between January and June, FPIs have pumped in a net of Rs 77,322 crore, the highest in the first six months in any year. Indian agriculture has reached a stage where more the govt intervenes, lower will be the growth: NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand While March this year witnessed the highest ever fund inflow into equities in a month by FPIs at Rs 33,980 crore, it stood at Rs 2,272 crore in June. Even as the ruling NDA government came back to power and the Bharatiya Janata Party secured a majority on its own in the general elections concluded on May 2019, domestic growth concerns, global trade worries and slow progress of monsoon in India weighed over the minds of foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) as they significantly reduced the pace of fund inflow into Indian equities in June. While March this year witnessed the highest ever fund inflow into equities in a month by FPIs at Rs 33,980 crore, it stood at Rs 2

The Indian Express July 02, 2019 Akash Joshi The June 30 editorial in Dawn takes umbrage at Pakistan Army Chief General Qamar Bajwa’s remarks about the economic (mis)management of the country by previous civilian governments and his endorsement of the PTI government led by Imran Khan. While much of the conversation in and about Pakistan’s curious de facto state structure has centred around the relationship between the civilian government and the army — whether through coups or “remote controlling” the government — there is little discussion about the relationship of the Pakistan “deep state” and the country’s judiciary. An article by Faisal Siddiqui in Dawn asks whether there are now the beginnings of “judicial-military” conflict in Pakistan. Siddiqui writes: “The judicial side of this civil-military conflict has either been denied by contending that the judiciary has been the alleged ‘B team’ of the military or, if acknowledged, the judicial-military conflict has been pe

The Indian Express July 02, 2019 Vikram S Mehta The US-Iran stand-off is wrapped in a “fog of uncertainty”. No one really knows what will happen but what we do know, based on our reading of Clausewitz and understanding of history, is that it could take no more than a false report, a miscalculation or simply an accident for the region to conflagrate into violent conflict. “The most common form of human stupidity is forgetting what one is trying to do.” This Nietzschean aphorism finds sharp affirmation in the behaviour of the leaders of the US and Iran today. Both have forgotten what they are trying to achieve but both are engaged in verbal, economic and physical jousting that is generating sparks that could light up a regional bonfire. India would be severely impacted in such an event. Our leaders face a policy dilemma. Should they use their “soft” power to try and snuff out the sparks but risk an embarrassing rebuff? Or should they stay on the sidelines in the hope that d

THE HINDU JULY 01, 2019 Hong Kong   P olice fired tear gas in running battles with hundreds of protesters, some of whom stormed the legislature, destroyed pictures and daubed walls with graffiti, on the anniversary of the city's 1997 return to Chinese rule on Monday. Police arrived in a convoy of buses as about a thousand protesters, furious at a proposed law allowing extraditions to   China,  were gathered around the Legislative Council building in the former British colony's financial district in a direct challenge to authorities in Beijing. Police fired several rounds of tear gas as protesters held up umbrellas to protect themselves or fled. Plumes of smoke billowed across major thoroughfares and in between some of the world's tallest skyscrapers. Most demonstrators had been cleared by the early hours of Tuesday after some of the most violent protests to rock the city in decades. It was not clear if any arrests were made. Umbrellas, metal barriers,

LIVE MINT JUNE 30, 2019 NEETU CHANDRA SHARMA Scientists have flagged four new bat species as surveillance priorities in India after the re-emergence of Nipah Virus   outbreak in 2018 in Kerala. In a new study, published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases on Thursday, scientists used machine learning to identify bat species with the potential to host Nipah virus, with a focus on India. A team of scientists used machine learning, a form of artificial intelligence to flag bat species with the potential to harbour Nipah. Scientists compiled published data on bat species known to carry Nipah and other henipaviruses (bat borne viruses) globally. Data included 48 traits of 523 bat species, including information on foraging methods, diet, migration behaviors, geographic ranges, and reproduction. They also looked at the environmental conditions in which reported spillovers occurred. After compilation of data, the scientists applied a trait-based machine learning approach to a subs

THE ECONOMIC TIMES  JUNE 30, 2019 Facebook and Twitter and other social media platforms agreed to take further steps to  stop the spread of violent extremist content in Australia as global pressure increases following the  live streaming of the New Zealand massacre in March. An Australian task force that also includes YouTube and Australia’s biggest mobile-phone  operators on Sunday released a report with nine areas for action, including efforts to prevent,  detect and remove such material. The group, officially named The Australian Task force to Combat Terrorist and Extreme Violent  Material Online, recommended enacting a simulated event as soon as this year to assess the  response of the industry and the government. Fifty-one people died in the Christchurch attacks, a mass murder that could be viewed on  Facebook, and the company came under criticism for not taking down the material fast  enough. G20 leaders meeting in Osaka this weekend called for online platform

THE QUINT JULY 01, 2019 US President Donald Trump suggested facilitating dialogue with Moscow to mend bilateral ties when he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Japan's Osaka, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Putin and Trump held a meeting on Friday on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Japan, which Peskov said was rather "positive and constructive", Xinhua reported. "The U.S. President has expressively voiced his willingness to re-energize dialogue. Putin said long ago that he wanted to normalize our ties...It was the first time that the U.S. president had reciprocated," Peskov was quoted by Sputnik news agency as saying on Sunday. "Putin and Trump spoke quite confidently about the need to continue their contacts at the highest level. At least they said they were not parting for long," Peskov added. He also said that the leaders agreed to promote bilateral trade and economic relations and Trump, in particular, i

DAILYHUNT JUNE 30, 2019 The consignment of heroin and another 52 kg of suspected mixed narcotics was concealed under hundreds of bags of rock salt. Amritsar   :  In its biggest ever drug haul, the Customs Department seized 532 kg of suspected heroin worth Rs. 2,700 crore, which was smuggled into India from Pakistan in a truck through trade route at the Attari border, officials said Sunday. An official said the smuggling racket's alleged mastermind, based in Kashmir valley, has been arrested and the importer of the rock salt consignment, who is based in Amritsar, has been detained for questioning. The consignment of heroin and another 52 kg of suspected mixed narcotics was concealed under hundreds of bags of rock salt inside the truck which arrived at Attari through the Integrated Check Post (ICP) two days ago, Customs (Preventive) Commissioner Deepak Kumar Gupta said. "In a major breakthrough in busting the international organised drug smuggling, the Custom

DAILYHUNT JUNE 30, 2019 India's foreign intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) is strengthening the maritime intelligence network in an attempt to clamp down on the growing dominance of China and Pakistan's nexus in the Arabian Sea. The agency is more attention to the Arabian Sea region. Eight months ago, during the rule of the then Maldivian President Abdullah Yami, Male became the foreign hub of the Pakistani intelligence agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). A confidential report by RAW revealed that the Indian agency thwarted the design of ISI in the strategy island country Maldives.According to the report, the ISI, along with some close associates of the Chinese intelligence agency Ministry of State Security (MSS) and some close associates of former Maldivian President Abdullah Yameen, was promoting anti-India activities operating from the Pakistani Embassy in Male. Yameen was reportedly in contact with a senior Pakistani diplomat and late

DAILYHUNT JULY 01, 2019 Amidst its plans to expand business in India significantly, Nepal's billionaire multi-national group CG Corp Global is all set to launch a mega food park in Rajasthan's Ajmer in three months. CG Corp Global, the only business group of a South Asian nation having a presence in almost all countries of the region, will launch the food park in September, its Chairman Binod Chaudhary told IANS in New Delhi. The soft launch for the project was done by Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal sometime back but now it will be made fully operational in September.The food park, spread over 100 acres, involves an investment of Rs 150 crore. The project, which will also involve a chain of cold storages and processing units, will benefit thousands of farmers and provide employment to many in Ajmer and surrounding areas. "The food park will link farmers to the market directly," Chaudhary said, adding the project falls under the Modi g