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Business Line Published By: Anonymous The dollar held firm on Monday after data showed surprise strength in the United States (US) jobs market, but the currency was restrained from moving higher by worries about an escalation in the US-China trade war. The dollar index stood almost flat at 97.706 in mid-Asian trade, after rising 0.3 per cent on Friday. The euro traded at $1.10575, after hitting a one-week low of $1.10395 on Friday. The dollar changed hands at 108.58 yen. It had lifted to 108.92 yen on the US jobs data before losing momentum . US nonfarm payrolls increased by 2,66,000 jobs last month, the biggest gain in 10 months, while the unemployment rate ticked back down to 3.5 per cent, its lowest level in nearly half a century. Those figures suggested the Trump administration's 17-month trade war with China, which has plunged manufacturing into recession, has not yet spilled over to the broader US economy. Still, investors think that could ch

Business line Published By Anonymous Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) holding stakeholder consultations on the issue, says the official   The new e-commerce policy being drafted by the government is likely to lay down how non-personal data such as commercial data held by e-commerce companies, anonymised data and community data are to be treated in terms of their location and processing. “We have started stakeholder consultations on how to treat non-personal data. It is a highly sensitive matter as different stakeholders have different views on it. For instance, Nasscom has its set of opinions, while industry body CII has its own views. There are also various studies done on the subject. All these will be examined one by one," Guruprasad Mohapatra, Secretary, Department of Policy for Industry and Internal Trade told  BusinessLine . The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), while working on the Personal Data B

Business Line  Produced By:  Anonymous Washington spurns the draft General Council decision presented by facilitator Crisis at the World Trade Organization escalated on Monday with the US refusing to “unblock” the selection process for filling the six vacancies at the highest court for trade disputes despite a large majority of countries ready to accept a draft decision prepared by the facilitator, trade envoys said. At an extraordinary General Council meeting, which is the highest decision-making body after the ministerial conference, the facilitator Ambassador David Walker, who is also the chair for the dispute settlement system, presented his draft decision to break the impasse for starting the selection process for filling six vacancies expeditiously so to ensure that the Appellate Body remains functional without much delay. Comprehensive changes The draft General Council decision includes some comprehensive changes in the rules governing the dispute settlement

Indian Express Published By: Express New Service India climbed one spot to take the 129th rank among 189 countries on the 2019 report on Human Development Index (HDI) released by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on Monday. India was at the 130th place on this index in last year’s report. India’s HDI value has marginally increased from 0.643 in 2017 to 0.647 in 2018, shows the report, titled ‘Beyond Income, Beyond Averages, Beyond Today: Inequalities in Human Development in the 21st Century’. Globally, Norway, with a HDI value of 0.954, is at the first rank while Burundi (0.423) is at the bottom. As far as India’s neighbouring countries are concerned, China ranked 85 and Bangladesh and Pakistan ranked 135 and 152, respectively. Sri Lanka ranked 71 and Maldives ranked 104. “India’s HDI value has increased by 50 per cent from 0.431 in 1990 to 0.647 in 2018, which places it above average for countries in the medium human development group (0.634) and above

The Indian Express Published By: Ashish Aryan US-based retailers Walmart and Amazon on Monday stepped up efforts to boost their image of being MSME-friendly by launching similar, albeit different, training programmes for India. Walmart, which had earlier this year bought a controlling 77 per cent stake in home-grown  Flipkart , announced the creation of a supplier training and development programme ‘Walmart Vriddhi’. The programme aims to train 50,000 small businesses so as to enable them to be suppliers for global supply chains. The global retail conglomerate has tied up with NGO Swasti to open 25 training institutes where it aims to train micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) entrepreneurs in tailored courses. “The Vriddhi programme will encourage Indian suppliers to make for online and offline customers around the world, including, but not limited to, the supply chains of Flipkart and Walmart,” Judith McKenna, president and CEO, Walmart International, said a

Time Magazine Published By: Billy Perrigo India moved a step closer on Tuesday to making it easier to imprison and deport some members of its 200-million strong Muslim minority, in a significant challenge to the country’s secular constitution. On Tuesday, Indian lawmakers passed the Citizenship Amendment Bill through the lower house of Parliament where the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), led by  Prime Minister Narendra Modi , has a huge majority. The BJP came to power under Modi in 2014, but won a landslide reelection in May with an increased majority. Since then, the government has embarked on increasingly bold moves to reshape India according to its ideology, sidelining Muslims in the process. In August, bolstered by victory, Modi  revoked the constitutional autonomy of Kashmir , India’s only Muslim-majority state. Soldiers poured in, setting up roadblocks,  imposing a curfew and imprisoning political leaders . And in November, India’s top court

Media @ USCIRF Published By: Anonymous WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is deeply troubled by the  passage  of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill (CAB), originally introduced by Home Minister Amit Shah, in the Lok Sabha (the lower house of the Indian Parliament) given the religion criterion in the bill. The CAB will now move to the Rajya Sabha (Indian Parliament’s Upper House). If the CAB passes in both houses of parliament, the United States government should consider sanctions against the Home Minister and other principal leadership. The  CAB  enshrines a pathway to citizenship for immigrants that specifically excludes Muslims, setting a legal criterion for citizenship based on religion. The CAB is a dangerous turn in the wrong direction; it runs counter to India’s rich history of secular pluralism and the Indian Constitution, which guarantees equality before the law regardless of faith. In conjunction with the ongoing National

The Telegraph Published By: Anonymous 'Small units are the backbone of our economy and it is important that they have complete support in their journey into e-commerce' Global retail giants Walmart and Amazon are strengthening their partnerships with micro, small & medium enterprises (MSMEs) ahead of the launch of an e-commerce venture by Reliance Industries later this month. Under the Vriddhi supplier development programme, Walmart aims to train 50,000 small businesses to expand their domestic capabilities and participate in the global economy. Institutes will be opened under the Vriddhi programme, which will be strategically located near the manufacturing clusters and are part of Walmart’s “long-term commitment to India”, Walmart International president and CEO Judith McKenna said. Amazon India has also announced that it has partnered the CII to facilitate MSMEs to develop their business further by listing and selling their products and services online.

Hindustan Times  Published By: Rahul Singh The sales fell during the one-year period because of fewer orders from the Indian armed forces, showed the figures published on Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). The combined sales of three Indian companies that figure among the world’s 100 top arms suppliers stood at $5.9 billion in 2018, a drop of 6.9% compared to the previous year, according to the latest data released by a leading Stockholm-based think-tank that tracks the weapons industry. The sales fell during the one-year period because of fewer orders from the Indian armed forces, showed the figures published on Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). The three Indian companies on Sipri’s list of top 100 global arms firms are Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), the Indian Ordnance Factories and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL); their global ranks last year stood at 38, 56 and 62 respectively. T

Firstpost  Published By: Praveen Swami The bombing came hours after Lashkar chief Hafiz Saeed was produced a Lahore court to face terror-financing charges. Talha Saeed, a second source said, was waiting to speak at the religious meeting when the explosion occurred, even as another Lashkar preacher was addressing the gathering. The victims, a Lahore-based journalist said, were all supporters of the the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and regular visitors to the Ali-o-Murtaza mosque. New Delhi:  Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed’s son, Talha Saeed, narrowly escaped assassination in a bombing on Lahore’s fringes on Saturday evening, three Pakistani sources familiar with an ongoing investigation into the attack have told  Firstpost . At least seven other Lashkar supporters were critically injured in the attack, the sources said, and one person killed. The bombing, targeting a religious meeting at the Jamia Masjid Ali-o-Murtaza on Muhammad Ali Road in Lahore’s Township