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New Delhi Updated: August 20, 2019 The company’s operational creditors, including Bharat Petrosources, GAIL India and Bharat Heavy Electrical Ltd (BHEL), had moved the NCLAT earlier this year. The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on Monday ruled against operational creditors of Monnet Ispat and Energy, appealing the committee of creditors’ (CoC) decision to award them only Rs 25 crore against claims of Rs 444 crore. The company’s operational creditors, including Bharat Petrosources, GAIL India and Bharat Heavy Electrical Ltd (BHEL), had moved the NCLAT earlier this year. A plea filed by Industrial Financial Corporation of India (IFCI), a financial creditor, against treating of its secured loans as unsecured debt was also dismissed by the appellate tribunal. Monnet Ispat owes IFCI around Rs 158 crore. The company’s CoC had assigned a nil liquidation value to BHEL’s Rs 15 crore claims, while claims of Bharat Petrosources’ stand at Rs 19 crore. BHEL cont

Reuters August 19, 2019 The German economy could have continued to shrink over the summer as industrial production drops amid a dearth of orders, the central bank of the Federal Republic of Germany, Bundesbank, said on Monday, suggesting that the euro zone's biggest economy is now in a recession. German growth contracted in the second quarter on slumping exports as a global trade war, China's own slowdown and Brexit uncertainty sapped confidence, dealing a blow to an export-focused economy. “Overall economic performance could again decline slightly,” the Bundesbank said in a monthly report. “The main reason for this is the continuing downturn in industry,” the central bank said, pointing to a significant decline in orders and a big drop in sentiment indicators for manufacturing firms. While domestic consumption continues to isolate the economy, the jobs market is already showing signs of weakness and confidence in the services sector is also dropping, the Bundesba

DR UMER KHAYYAM Published: August 19, 2019 From an agrarian economy to rapid industrialisation, followed by its expansion and digitalisation, we are now speeding to enter the 4th Industrial Revolution – as remarked by Professor Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. Unlike other revolutions, this one is unique in the sense that its negative impact is not confined to one specific sector, but it alters our physical, digital, industrial as well as economic spheres. That entails reshaping our outlook. It can redefine what it means to be human through artificial intelligence (AI)-based systems, self-driven cars, computer-dictated neurological responses, reprogramming and genetically engineered DNA for required traits, algorithmic warfare, 5G and what not. Given the potential of the 4th Industrial Revolution to completely transform the current situation, it can have unnoticed uncertainty in its way. Yet, all this adds up to what has already happened

New Delhi Published 20.08.19 Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Monday said the corporate tax rate for companies with over Rs 400-crore turnover will be gradually cut to 25 per cent and the government will support wealth creators. In her maiden budget last month, Sitharaman had cut the corporate tax for companies with an annual turnover of up to Rs 400 crore to 25 per cent from 30 per cent. Her predecessor Arun Jaitley had last year cut the corporate income tax rate to 25 per cent for companies with a turnover of up to Rs 250 crore. Speaking at an industry event here, Sitharaman said the tax cuts for other companies would be gradual but did not give a timeframe. Echoing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Independence Day speech, she said Indian wealth-creator entrepreneurs would be given all kinds of support. Modi in his annual address to the nation from the Red Fort on August 15 had extolled the role of wealth creators and said they must not be viewed with

Parvatha Vardhini C  BL Research Bureau Updated on August 20, 2019 The report of the task force on Direct Taxes Code (DTC) submitted to the Finance Minister on Monday is yet to be made public. But sources say that the panel may have suggested tweaks in personal tax slabs and an introduction of a new rate between 5 per cent and 20 per cent. While this brings cheer for the individual tax payers, it is worth recalling that a lot of a lot of changes mentioned in the earlier version of the DTC have already been introduced in varied forms over the years. What remained for the tax force were decisions on the instruments that qualify for 80C deduction as well as adjustment of tax slabs. Changes over the years The Direct Taxes Code Bill 2010 lapsed when the NDA 1.0 came to power in May 2014. The NDA set up a task force to review and rewrite the Income-Tax Act in end-2017, For individual tax-payers, a lot has changed since the DTC was first mooted. On personal taxation, the DTC Bil

Lee Fang, August 19 2019 THE AMERICAN FUEL & Petrochemical Manufacturers, a powerful lobbying group that represents major chemical plants and oil refineries, including Valero Energy, Koch Industries, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Marathon Petroleum, has flexed its muscle over environmental and energy policy for decades. Despite its reach, AFPM channels dark money and influence with little scrutiny. The group is now leveraging its political power to criminalize protests of oil and gas infrastructure. In an audio recording obtained by The Intercept, the group concedes that it has been playing a role behind the scenes in crafting laws recently passed in states across the country to criminalize oil and gas pipeline protests, in response to protests over the Dakota Access pipeline. The laws make it a crime to trespass on public land used for “critical infrastructure,” impose a fine or prison time for violators, and hold protesters responsible for damage incurred during the pr

By RUCHIR SHARMA 18 August 2019 The New York Times Copyright 2019 The New York Times Company. All Rights Reserved. Global markets were seized by fear last week that trade wars were slowing growth in Germany, China and the United States. But the story here is bigger than President Trump and his tariffs. The postwar miracle is over. Since the financial crisis of 2008, the world economy has been struggling against four headwinds: deglobalization of trade, depopulation as labor forces shrink, declining productivity and a debt burden as high now as it was right before the crisis. No major economy is growing as fast as it was before 2008. Not one is growing faster than 10 percent, the rate experienced by the Asian ''miracle economies'' before the crisis. In almost every country, the national discussion focuses on what must be done to revive growth and ignores the fact that the slowdown is driven by forces beyond any one government's control. Instea

Bloomberg, 19 Aug 2019 SoftBank Group Corp. is planning to lend as much as $20 billion to its employees to buy stakes in its second venture capital fund following the success of an earlier $100 billion fund to invest in tech start ups, the Wall Street Journal reported. The second Vision Fund aims to raise $108 billion, SoftBank said earlier. In addition to its employees, it’s also expected to collect money from Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp., Foxconn Technology Group and the sovereign wealth fund of Kazakhstan. It’s also won support from Japanese financial institutions, with seven identified as signing memorandums of understanding to participate. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Masayoshi Son may account for half of the employee investment pool, according to the Journal, citing people familiar with the matter it didn’t identify. Emily Claffey, an external spokeswoman for SoftBank, didn’t respond to queries on loans to employees for the fund. Son has a net worth of $16

Surabhi,  Updated on August 19, 2019 Players hopeful that several measures taken by the govt will improve liquidity further The liquidity crisis that had squeezed funding to non-banking finance companies (NBFCs) now seems to be partially abating for smaller companies. However, fears of a slowdown crippling consumer demand are now emerging. Mahesh Thakkar, Director-General, Finance Industry Development Council (FIDC), said: “Smaller NBFCs are now slowly beginning to get credit. This is not across the board but there has been some improvement since the IL&FS crisis. But conditions are yet to go back to normal.” YS Chakravarti, Managing Director and CEO, Shriram City Union Finance, said while liquidity conditions could be better, bank funding is still available. “We have raised close to ₹2,500 crore... and another ₹2,000 crore sanctions are in the pipeline. Sanctions which used to take a week’s time earlier is taking a couple of weeks now. The process is a litt

Written by Pritish Raj New Delhi Updated: August 19, 2019  The companies and dealers are in a way pushed against the wall currently. They need to exhaust the inventory, as six months from now BS-VI emission norms would kick in. uto sales are at their lowest levels in nearly two decades and dealers are saddled with huge inventory. To push sales in such an environment and clear the network, manufacturers are offering huge discounts on several models to drive home the message that if one plans to purchase a vehicle, now is the best time. To be sure, if consumers are waiting to see whether the government cuts Goods and Services Tax (GST) on automobile products — as the industry is demanding — to fuel demand, the prices are not going to be much different than what one’s getting by way of discounts. Companies FE spoke to said in case of any GST cut, the reduction in prices will be passed onto the consumers but the discounts will be curtailed, so net-net, the consumers w

Updated: Aug 19, 2019 10:57 Ashok Malik Culminating in the “informal, closed-door meeting” of the United Nations Security Council on August 16, the past two weeks have been revealing. They have made apparent three different strands to the diplomatic challenge India faces following the bifurcation of Jammu and Kashmir and the removal of Article 370. In some senses, this is the biggest such challenge created by a domestic event since the Pokhran II nuclear tests. Many of the lead actors are the same. However, India’s leverage in the international system is much greater than in 1998. The first challenge is the civil liberties debate. Seen dispassionately, it represents a pressing dilemma for democratic governance – between lockdown conditions that ensure peace, and a relaxing of such conditions that makes space for incitement and violence. There is no easy “sweet spot” or “right moment”. A graded easing of administrative arrangements in the Valley has begun and schools and of

Balakrishna Pisupati / Shyama Kuriakose Updated on August 17, 2019   The revised guidelines are unclear on issues of benefit sharing and do not inspire confidence with respect to dispute resolution India is one of the few countries around the world that enacted a legislation to protect, sustainably use and share the benefits of use of biological resources present in the country — The Biological Diversity Act (2002). Seventeen years of implementation have provided the country with enough experience on how to implement the Act, as well as how not to interpret certain provisions. One key component of the Act is to devise ways and means to seek benefits from the commercial utilisation of biological resources and the associated traditional knowledge pertaining to the use of such resources. Guidelines for such access and benefit sharing (ABS) were issued in 2014. However, the interpretation of these Guidelines during implementation has been severely problematic. This has result

Devirupa Mitra, 18/AUG/2019 There was some mystery surrounding Russia’s positioning in New York in the run-up to the UN Security Council informal consultations on Kashmir. Moscow backed India but the support came with a twist – a reference to Security Council resolutions Delhi regards as long defunct. On Friday, the UNSC discussed India’s move to revoke the special constitutional status of Kashmir and bifurcate the state into two union territories. While the meeting took place behind closed doors, it was the first time that the members of UNSC conferred on “India-Pakistan question” since December 1971. The Council’s president, Joanna Wronecka of Poland, however, did not get the green light from all members to issue a public statement, much to India’s respite. China came out at the end of the meeting to convey a “general will” of the members against “unilateral actions”. But India’s envoy to the UN, Syed Akbaruddin, contended that China wasn’t being honest. Multiple di