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NDTV Profit, August 31, 2019 The deceleration in country's economic growth to the slowest in six years prompted Goldman Sachs Group to join other lenders in predicting deeper interest-rate cuts by the central bank to revive the pace of expansion. The Wall Street firm expects the Reserve Bank of India to reduce interest rates by 50 basis points in the next quarter, compared with its earlier estimate of 25 basis points. Elsewhere, Barclays Plc forecast an additional 65-basis-point decrease by the end of this year and Kotak Mahindra Bank estimated a 75-point reduction will come from the RBI. "We now think a 50bps rate cut is likely in fourth quarter, with risks skewed toward deeper cuts," Prachi Mishra, chief India economist at Goldman Sachs in Mumbai, wrote in a note. The gross domestic product surprised strongly to the downside, leading to an adjustment in growth forecasts, she wrote. Goldman slashed its growth forecast to 6 per cent for the current fiscal year to...

The Times of India August 31, 2019 NEW DELHI: Banking details of Indians with accounts in Switzerland will be available to tax authorities from Sunday as the automatic exchange of information regime kicks off between the two countries. The move, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) said, is a significant step in the government's fight against black money and the era of "Swiss bank secrecy" will finally be over from September. The CBDT frames policy for the Income-Tax Department. Between August 29 and August 30, a Swiss delegation, led by deputy head of the tax division in the state secretariat for international finance Nicolas Mario Luscher, called on Revenue Secretary A B Pandey, CBDT Chairman P C Mody and CBDT Member (Legislation) Akhilesh Ranjan before the regime kicked in, it said. The first automatic exchange of financial account information (AEOI) under the provisions common reporting standard will start from September. "India will receive inform...

Financial Express, August 31, 2019 Even as the domestic currency rupee continues to slide, shedding nearly 4.3% against US dollar in August, global firm UBS notes that corporates don’t expect a major slide going forward. The majority of firms (34%) expect the domestic currency rupee to trade in the 67-70 range against the US dollar (USD) over the next 12 months, according to UBS. “Around a quarter of firms expect it to weaken towards the 70-75 range. Overall, firms expect INR to recover to an average of 67-68 in the next 12 months,” said UBS in its latest report. Notably, the survey responses were part of UBS Evidence Lab  which comprised of 267 C-suite executives (including CEOs and CFOs) in July 2019 to gauge the views of broader India Inc. Notably, the rupee has lost more than 4% in the previous month, even as a confluence of domestic and global factors weigh on the currency. Yesterday, the rupee appreciated by 38 paise to close at a two-week high of 71.42 against the US d...

Hindustan Times, August 301, 2019 President Donald Trump on Thursday announced the creation of a new combatant command in US military, called Space Command. The new command will protect American interests in space, which he said, was “the next war-fighting domain”. “Those who wish to harm the United States seek to challenge us in the ultimate high ground of space,” the president said in remarks at a launch event at the White House. “It’s going to be a whole different ballgame.” Space Command will be America’s 11th unified command, after geographical Central Command, Africa Command, Indo-Pacific Command, functional Transport Command and the Strategic Command. It will be tasked with protecting US assets in space, including military satellites that are used in guiding military assets in air and on sea, communications and intelligence gathering. Air Force General John Raymond, who will be heading the new command, spoke to reporters before the launch ceremony. “I really believe we...

The Telegraph, August 31, 2019 he government on Friday announced an upfront infusion of Rs 55,250 crore in state-run banks to boost credit growth and regulatory compliance of the merging lenders. “The Rs 55,250-crore upfront capital infusion will be made in PSU banks for credit growth and regulatory compliance to support the economy. We have to bolster equity infusion into the banks with complete good governance footing,” finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said. The minister had last Friday announced an upfront capital infusion of Rs 70,000 crore in state-run banks. Banks to get a cash prop include Punjab National Bank, Union Bank, Canara Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Central Bank and Bank of Baroda. The finance ministry had infused Rs 1.06 lakh crore as bank recapitalisation in the previous fiscal against the budgeted target of Rs 65,000 crore. “No capital infusion has been announced for the SBI. According to estimates, SBI will require Rs 15,000 crore tier-1 capital duri...

The Indian Express, August 31, 2019 India and Pakistan made “good progress” on the technical aspects of the proposed Kartarpur Corridor at a meeting held here on Friday — the first after the government’s decision to scrap Jammu and Kashmir’s special status. “It was a positive meeting and good progress has been made regarding timely completion of the corridor project,” an official of the Pakistan Foreign Office told PTI in Lahore. “Both sides also agreed to have another meeting of technical experts to review the progress on the project,” the official said A meeting on the “political aspects” of the project will also be held soon, the Pakistan official said.“In that meeting, the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will be signed between the two countries on the corridor project,” he said. The meeting, held in makeshift tents at Zero Point, was attended by 10-15 officials from each side. These included officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Border Security Force, National Highwa...

The Indian Express, September 01, 2019 The Centre Friday unveiled a mega amalgamation plan, the third in a row, that merged 10 public sector banks into four larger entities with board-level governance reforms aimed at improving banks’ financial health and enhancing their lending capacity to support growth. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced four new sets of mergers — Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India to merge to form the country’s second-largest lender; Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank to amalgamate; Union Bank of India to acquire Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank; Indian Bank to merge with Allahabad Bank. Banks have been merged on the basis of likely operating efficiencies, better usage of equity and their technological platform, officials said. Instead of privatising some of these banks or bringing in strategic investors, the government decided that amalgamation is the “best route” to achieve banking sector scale and to support t...

The Indian Express, August 31, 2019 Even as there has been a slew of comments around the RBI’s surplus-capital transfer to the government, confusion reigns on its macroeconomic implications. There’s a perception that a fresh stimulus of the amount transferred (Rs 1.76 lakh crore) is now available. Consequently, market participants are queuing up to suggest where this fresh spending should be deployed. Indeed, a stimulus of this quantum (almost 1 per cent of GDP) invested in public infrastructure projects — that have large multiplier effects — should be enough to arrest the current slowdown, right? Not quite. It’s important to understand how this transfer will get absorbed into the Budget. For starters, Rs 28,000 crore of this amount was already transferred and used in last year’s budget. Additionally, the July budget penciled in Rs 90,000 crore as RBI dividends for 2019-20. So this amount has already been budgeted to pay for extant expenditures and is not available for fresh spen...

Tribune August 30, 2019 UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Dr Maleeha Lodhi on Thursday updated United Nations Security Council (UNSC) President Joanna Wronecka on the deepening crisis in Indian-Occupied Kashmir. Ambassador Lodhi also briefed two senior UN humanitarian officials on the acute suffering of the people languishing under a military lockdown in the occupied territory for the past 25 days, according to informed sources. She told UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock that over 14 million Kashmiris were facing a grim situation since August 5, when India annexed occupied Kashmir, sparking off the crisis. New Delhi’s “draconian measures”, she said, have led to shortages of food, medicine and essential supplies for over a million Kashmiri people, with no end in sight. And she told the UN officials that this was only the tip of the iceberg. “The humanitarian situation will become clearer once ...