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Dawn, July 31, 2019 It has emerged that the FBR has established a Financial Action Task Force cell to ensure that terrorism-related financial flows through currency smuggling are disrupted and regulations to prevent the practice correctly applied. The cell will serve as the focal point for activities related to customs’ compliance with the FATF regulations, on which depends Pakistan’s removal from the FATF grey list. The development follows on the heels of the July 17 arrest of Jamaatud Dawa chief, Hafiz Saeed, in connection with a terror-financing case. He was one of 13 top JuD leaders booked some days earlier by CTD Punjab in several money-laundering and terror-financing cases. According to the law-enforcement agency, JuD was receiving huge amounts of funds from around 10 non-profits and trusts that were banned in April. Militancy in Pakistan has long exploited public sentiments to ensure a steady stream of financing, which extremist groups then put to use within the c...

The Indian Express July 31, 2019 By Srinath Rao The Automated Multi-modal Biometric Identification System (or AMBIS) adopted by the Maharashtra Police will soon be replicated across the country.On Monday, Maharashtra became the first state to adopt a digital fingerprint and iris scanning system to aid police investigations. The Automated Multi-modal Biometric Identification System (or AMBIS) adopted by the Maharashtra Police will soon be replicated across the country, with the state government working with the National Crime Records Bureau in New Delhi to create standards to be used by other state police forces. Advertising An AMBIS unit comprises a computer terminal, a camera, and iris, fingerprint, and palm scanners. It also includes a portable system to dust off and capture fingerprints from crime scenes. With the integration of the system with facial recognition from CCTV cameras, AMBIS enables the police to cross-reference and put faces to criminals whose finge...

Tribune, July 31, 2019 Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi raised on Tuesday New Delhi’s atrocities in Indian occupied Kashmir (IoK) with a 10-member delegation of European parliamentarians who are visiting the held territory. According to Pakistan’s Foreign Office, the delegation included Leader of the Labour Party in Europe Richard Corbett and Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee Irina Von Wiese, as well as, MP Nazia Rehman. The delegation is on an eight-day visit to Pakistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).   Qureshi lauded the efforts of the Pakistani and Kashmiri diaspora  along with those involved in raising the issue of gross human rights violations in IoK. “The federal minister stated that the successive reports by the Office of the High Commissioner for human Rights (OHCHR), June 2018 and July 2019, as well as, the UK Parliament’s All Parties Parliamentary Kashmir Group (APPKG) report and the hearing by European Parliament’...

Token Post, July 31, 2019 The crypto community in India is increasing its efforts to sway the government to reconsider its decision of banning cryptocurrencies in the country. “ Different parts of the crypto community has been trying to make government officials aware of the benefits of crypto from the last 24 months ” Nischal Shetty, CEO of local crypto exchange firm Wazirx,  told news.Bitcoin.com, Shetty described the crypto report, which was recently released by the Ministry of Finance, as “flawed” as it failed to obtain insights from the community. Furthermore, it did not even classify crypto into assets, utilities, and securities. He also believes that the flaws are due to the committee’s limited understanding of the basic concept of cryptocurrency and insufficient research before preparing the report and draft bill. Although the crypto report was published on July 22, it was actually finalized on February 28. Thus, many think that the committee should have taken int...

Business Line July 29, 2019 By Surabhi Nearly three years after demonetisation of high-value currency, cash in circulation continues to be high. Experts believe that it will continue to be the preferred mode of payment, given its convenience and the country’s large informal sector. According to data with the Reserve Bank of India, notes in circulation totalled  ₹ 21.61-lakh crore by July 19, registering a steady rise from  ₹ 19.1-lakh crore by July 20 last year. While this is lower than the May-end 2019 figure of  ₹ 21.71-lakh crore, it is much higher than the  ₹ 17.74-lakh crore notes in circulation before demonetisation as on November 4, 2016. Similarly, other data show that while the number of ATMs in the country has decreased, withdrawals are on the rise. The number of transactions per day per ATM rose from 121 in September 2016 to a high of 145 in December last year before settling at 130 in April this year. The latest RBI data, available for May 201...

The Hindu July 30, 2019 By Atul Aneja China  is planning to spend $150 billion on 5G wireless technology in the next six years — a move to jump-start automated manufacturing and enable Beijing to emerge as a world leader in Artificial Intelligence (AI). China’s heavy investment in 5G has huge implications as it could sharpen Beijing’s competitive edge, vis-à-vis the U.S., the world’s largest economy. “China regards next-generation 5G networks — which offer faster data rates, reduced latency, energy savings, cost reductions, higher system capacity and massive device connectivity — as a chance to get out in front for the first time,” says the China Internet Report (CIR) 2019, published jointly by  South China Morning Post  ( SCMP ) and Abacus. 5G networks would be at the heart of a Wi-Fi linked “connected” world. “Every asset can be connected through the internet,” says Cui Kai, a Beijing-based analyst of Internet of Things (IoT) for the IDC, as quoted by  ...

The Hindu July 31, 2019 By Shiv Sahay Singh Two girls, ages 13 years and 15 years respectively, rescued from traffickers in two different corners of the country, were brought to West Bengal on Tuesday. World Day Against Trafficking in Persons is observed on 30 July. One of two rescued persons, who hails from the State’s North 24 Parganas district, went missing on May 23, 2019 and was rescued from Silchar in Assam She was bought and sold by traffickers in Jhunjhunu (Rajasthan), Meerut (Kabari Bazar), Delhi (G.B. Road), Allahabad (Mirganj), and Silchar. The other girl, a resident of the adjoining South 24 Parganas district who was rescued from Delhi earlier this month, went missing on April 4, 2019. These two cases provide evidence that trafficking of women and girls was and continues to be a big challenge for law enforcement agencies and NGOs working in West Bengal and across India. According to the last available report of the National Crime Record Bureau for the year 2016, ...

The Hindu , July 31, 2019 By Krishnan Srinivasan Despite the fact that India has served as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) more often than any country other than  Japan   from the Asia-Pacific Group, it is a matter of satisfaction and a tribute to Indian diplomacy that the Group unanimously decided this year to support India for an eighth second-year term. The elections are to take place in June next year. This means that India’s election is assured and its term will run in the calendar years 2021 and 2022. To anticipate what issues will arise during India’s tenure two and three years down the road, in the highest decision-making organ concerned with peace and conflict in the global organisation, is clearly problematic. The dynamics of international politics are fast moving. The Washington consensus of the post-Soviet era, if it ever truly existed, has unravelled in the wake of three factors: tensions between major powers; proxy w...

The Hindu, July 31, 2019  By Reetika Khera Last year, I was denied information requested under the  Right to Information  Act (RTI) 2005. I had sought the names of agencies empanelled by the Unique Identification Authority of India for an “image makeover” and the expenditure on it. It was denied by invoking the exemption clauses of Sections 8(d) and 8(j), respectively, i.e. the ‘commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property’ and ‘unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual’. Apart from the recent RTI Amendment Bill, 2019, there are many ways in which the RTI is being undermined. In 2017, my co-author and I wanted to check what proportion of beneficiaries receive their pensions or rations using data provided through government portals, for example the National Food Security Act and State social security pensions. We found data without dictionaries, abbreviations that were not spelt out anywhere, figures that were inconsistent across differ...