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The Hindu October 13, 2019 India will risk losing intelligence from the U.S. if it allows Chinese telecom major Huawei to be part of its 5G infrastructure, a U.S. Republican Senator said during a visit to Delhi that coincided with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s arrival in Chennai. Texas Senator Ted Cruz, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who also plays a crucial role in the U.S. reaction to developments in J&K, told The Hindu that while “legal questions” were for India to resolve internally, escalating India-Pakistan tensions were a cause for worry in America. “The U.S. has made it clear that it would be severely constrained in sharing intelligence with any nation that installs Huawei equipment; that undermines U.S. national security and that of any country that installs it,” asserted Mr. Cruz, who also met Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan and business chambers in the capital. While the government has still to announ...

The Print  October 12, 2019 Rather than waste resources on recovery and sustenance of urban cooperative banks, focus can be on articulating a credit disbursement mechanism. So transformative has been the impact and valuable a contribution of ‘cooperatives,’ that the concept has been inscribed by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Paradoxically, Urban Cooperative Banks (UCBs) in India are telling a story that contradicts the celebration around the notion of cooperatives by succumbing to failure and scams. The most recent instance is that of the Punjab Maharashtra Cooperative (PMC) Bank. These instances beg the question of how relevant are UCBs in the financial space of the country? In answering this question, we highlight the divergence between what enterprise a UCB is ideally expected to be and the form of entity it has actually become. The seven co-operati...

Business Line October 12, 2019 BASF India has received demand notices from the Commercial Tax Department, Karnataka, for ₹324.49 crore (incl. interest and penalty) for 2006-2010, 2010-11 (2 months) and 2014-15; the depatment has treated the stock transfers of its Mangalore plant as interstate sales to dealers. However, the demand for 2010-11 (2 months) and 2014-15 aggregating ₹98.81 crore has been stalled by the Karnataka Appellate Tribunal. BASF has filed an appeal in the HIgh Court for 2006-2010 demand, too. Reference: https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/markets/stock-markets/tax-notice-may-dampen-sentiment-in-basf-india/article29659173.ece

Financial Express October 12, 2019 What compounds the worry is that the slowdown is broad-based (manufacturing and electricity contracted while mining barely grew) even at a time when companies usually stock up to cater for festive demand. Industrial production in August shrank 1.1%, the worst contraction in 81 months and the first since June 2017, suggesting the supply side is adjusting itself to the acute demand compression in the economy and dampening hopes of an industrial recovery anytime soon to prop up faltering GDP growth. What compounds the worry is that the slowdown is broad-based (manufacturing and electricity contracted while mining barely grew) even at a time when companies usually stock up to cater for festive demand. The data released by the Central Statistics Organisation on Friday showed capital goods output contracted as much as 21% in August — the worst show in the current series (since April 2012) — and recorded its eighth straight month of fall,...

The Wire October 12, 2019 Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar The reading of the word “disposed” – used by the Central Information Commission in its order – as “dismissed”, first by a single bench and then by a division bench of the Delhi high court, appears to have saved the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) from the task of divulging information in corruption cases against Central ministers and black money, which the Narendra Modi government claimed to have brought from abroad. The original application in the case was filed by whistleblower IFS officer Sanjiv Chaturvedi in August 2017 under the Right to Information Act, 2005. Details sought of corruption cases  Through the application filed with the PMO, Chaturvedi, who was also awarded the Magsaysay Award for exposing corruption by government functionaries, sought details of corruption complaints against Union ministers, the inquiries conducted into these complaints and the final action taken by PMO. His query pertained to ...

Financial First If you have invested or looking to invest in a mutual fund (MF) then you must have heard of SIP or Systematic Investment Plan. A monthly SIP entails investing a fixed amount of money in an MF scheme on a specific date of the month, every month (there are weekly SIPs too). Such systematic investments may stretch across several years. It is assumed that SIP takes emotional aspect of investment out of the equation. This would be good for volatile assets class like equity. However, longer tenors are prescribed for SIP so that one is able to take care of market ups and downs. Many advisers recommend equity SIP for 5 years plus. Equity is a volatile asset class and there is no guaranteed way to know what the return could be. However, a return of 12-15% p.a. is an often quoted figure. We decided to test this hypothesis by taking BSE Index for almost last 27 years (Jan 1991- May 2018, source: www.bseindia.com). Assuming that daily BSE Index represents daily NA...

Financial Express October 14, 2019 The development comes just days after the Income Tax department seized Rs 30 crore alleged black money from a coaching institute in Tamil Nadu. A fake currency printing unit was busted in Idigarai town in Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu on Sunday, according to news agency ANI. Fake notes with a face value of Rs 14 lakhs were seized. The report suggests that the police have taken five persons into custody for interrogation in connection with the case. The probe is underway. The development comes just days after the Income Tax department seized Rs 30 crore alleged black money from a coaching institute in Tamil Nadu. The I-T had conducted a search operation at 17 premises including residential premises — in Namakkal, Perundurai, Karur and Chennai — of the coaching group’s promotors. The group is mainly into the running of educational institutions, and coaching institutes for competitive exams such as NEET. In a statement, the Centra...