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The Telegraph July 11, 2019 Mineral-rich Odisha has the potential to be a $1-trillion economy and help India to become a $10-trillion economy, according to a report prepared by JSW Group and PwC India. Releasing the vision report, titled Economic Possibilities for Odisha Towards a One-Trillion-Dollar Economy, at the state secretariat, chief minister Naveen Patnaik said, “Mineral-rich Odisha will play a central role in driving national growth as a manufacturing hub of the country. Odisha, having huge natural resources, is on its way to achieve this objective through its investment friendly policies, infrastructure connectivity and skilled manpower.” The report emphasized on the competitive advantage of Odisha over other states and its potential to become the export hub for metal products across the world. The report draws parallel between the mineral-rich Hebei province of China and Odisha. The Hebei province, that constitutes around 1.96 per cent of China’s tota...

The Telegraph July 11,2019 State-owned oil firms ONGC, Indian Oil Corporation and GAIL India are the likely candidates for selloffs that would take the government holding in them to below 51 per cent — which was announced by Nirmala Sitharaman in the budget. The government would, however, like to wield management control in them, which is the case in many private sector companies where the promoters hold less than 50 per cent but still runs the operations. Officials said the finance ministry would soon approach the cabinet to bring down the government’s stake in some of the state-owned firms to below 51 per cent. They said cabinet clearance would be sought for five or 10 PSUs, in which the government would bring down its stake to below 51 per cent, at one go so that clearance is not sought on a case-by-case basis. The Centre directly holds 64.24 per cent in ONGC, the government’s most profitable cash cow. LIC holds 9.47 per cent equity in the oil giant, while Indian Oil...

The Quint  July 11, 2019 The Union Cabinet on Wednesday, 10 July, declared ‘Sikhs for Justice’ (SFJ) an unlawful association for its alleged anti-national activities. Home Ministry sources cited by ANI said “the Cabinet declared SFJ, a fringe group run by a few radical Sikhs of foreign nationality in US, Canada, UK etc, as an unlawful association under provision 3(1) of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) 1967.” The founder of the secessionist group, Avtar Singh Pannu, was seen shouting slogans, wearing a t-shirt that said, "Khalistan Zindabad, Referendum 2020" at the India-New Zealand cricket match in the UK on Wednesday. “Twelve cases have been filed, 39 people of SFJ have been arrested. Many social media handles of SFJ have been blocked,” the sources said. The decision to ban the group was taken by the Centre in consultation with the state governments, including the one in Punjab, they added. “Sikhs for Justice wanted to use Kartarpur Co...

Gadgets 360 Indo-Asian News Services, July 11, 2019 With India pressing for traceability of WhatsApp messages to check the spread of fake news, a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras on Wednesday stressed that the issue can be easily resolved without diluting end-to-end encryption and affecting the privacy of users. "If WhatsApp says it is not technically possible to show the originator of the message, I can show that it is possible," said V. Kamakoti, while delivering a lecture at Indian Council of World Affairs. "When a message is sent from WhatsApp, the identity of the originator can also be revealed along with the message. So the message and the identity of the creator can be seen only by the recipient. When that recipient forwards the message, his/her identity can be revealed to the next recipient," he said, adding that as per court ruling, those who forward a harmful message can also be held responsible in certain cases. ...

Live Mint PTI July 11, 2019 New Delhi: The government has re-calibrated and fixed the direct taxes collection target for this financial year at ₹13.35 lakh crore, a task that the CBDT chief said is difficult but achievable. He also said that the government can only think of further "lowering" corporate tax rates once the exemptions and deductions in this sector are phased out. "In the last revised estimates, our target (for 2019-20 financial year) was fixed as ₹13.78 lakh crore which appeared to be rather unrealistic because it was showing an increase of almost 24% year-on-year. This is the submission we made while budget deliberations were going on. "I am happy to say that the government in its wisdom was appreciative of that and they went by the actual collections which happened last year. And consequent to that the budget (collection target for direct taxes) has now been fixed at ₹13.35 lakh crore," CBDT Chairman Pramod Chandra Mody told PTI. ...

Live Mint Ravindra M Sonawane July 11, 2019 Mumbai: Investors of InterGlobe Aviation Ltd, which operates IndiGo, lost over $1.40 billion in market value in the last two sessions, hitting a four-month low after differences between the two founders of India's largest airline became public. The stock lost nearly 16.7% in the last two sessions, eroding ₹9,778.36 crore in market value after one of the founders Rakesh Gangwal wrote to the market regulator saying “fundamental governance norms and laws are not being adhered". The stock touched a low of ₹1,313.40 a share -- a level last seen on 15 March. At 10.04 am, the scrip was trading at ₹1,315.80 on BSE, down 5.9% from its previous close. So far this year, it has gained nearly 16%. "Although we do not see any serious repercussions as yet, management distractions could impact Interglobe Aviation’s (IndiGo) currently strong franchise. Moreover, current valuations reflect high growth expectations in an indust...

Firstpost Syed Ata Hasnain The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) reported in Parliament on Tuesday (9 July 2019) that in the first six months of 2019 the situation in Jammu and Kashmir has witnessed improvement with terror-related incidents seeing a 28 percent decline; infiltration reduced by 43 percent, local recruitment declined by 40 percent and neutralisation of terrorists increased by 22 percent.  This can be a make or break moment in Jammu and Kashmir, but hardly the time to cut back Indian Army deployment There is no reason to disbelieve data p resented to Parliament because manifestation on the ground also points to an improving situation in the state. However, when the security situation improves in Jammu and Kashmir there are far more questions to be asked because this isn’t the first time that such a phenomenon has been witnessed. Many times in the past prospects of peace have been evident, only to see a complete downturn shortly thereafter. The situation in...

Firstpost Praveen Swami, July 10, 2019 In a message released late on Tuesday night, Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri has called for Kashmir-based jihadist groups to “single-mindedly focus on inflicting unrelenting blows on the Indian Army and government so as to bleed the Indian economy and make India suffer sustained losses in manpower and equipment”. In the message, Al-Zawahiri — Al-Qaeda’s first-in-command focused exclusively on Kashmir — also lashes out at Pakistan’s army and government saying they cannot be trusted to liberate Kashmir. “Their history of failures, defeats, corruption, and treachery is a witness to this truth”, Al-Zawahiri argues. “At the very most, all they would like to achieve is to transfer to Kashmir the corruption and rot that Pakistan has endured at their hands for seventy years”. “Kashmir is a bleeding wound in our hearts”, Al-Zawahiri writes, “hearts that grieve with the pain of many such bleeding wounds”. “It is a tragedy made even direr by...

The Indian Express July 11, 2019 The CM said, “Though the outfit deserved to be treated as a terrorist organisation, the Government of India had at least taken a long-overdue stand against SFJ, which had unleashed a wave of terror in Punjab in recent years.”Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh Wednesday welcomed the Centre’s decision to ban the SFJ as an unlawful association, describing it as the first step towards protecting the nation from the “anti-India/secessionist designs of the ISI-backed organisation”. Amarinder had earlier demanded that the Sikhs for Justice (SFJ) be branded as a terrorist outfit. Reiterating his demand, the CM said, “Though the outfit deserved to be treated as a terrorist organisation, the Government of India had at least taken a long-overdue stand against SFJ, which had unleashed a wave of terror in Punjab in recent years.” “With this step, the Centre had finally shown its much-needed intent to crack down on the organisation, which w...

The Indian Express Gopal Krishna Agarwal, July 11, 2019 If we are concerned with the economic well-being of the nation, we have to focus on economic growth. Setting a target and working on a roadmap to reach it is the only way to success, and who knows this better than Prime Minister  Narendra Modi. In 2014, when Modi came to power, he set up a performance matrix, which seemed far-fetched, but his tireless efforts hit the bull’s eye. Advertising BEST OF EXPRESS LIVE Karnataka crisis: SC asks MLAs to appear before Speaker at 6 pm today Ex-BJP MP Dinu Solanki gets life term for murder of RTI activist LIVE Goal of $5 trillion economy is 'pie in the sky', says Chidambaram MORE EXPLAINED Karnataka crisis: Reading the Speaker’s rulebook He has caught the bull by the horn on issues such as NPA, corruption, leakages and cleanliness; and effective solutions like the insolvency and bankruptcy code (IBC), GST, demonetisation, Jan Dhan accounts and Swa...