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Moneylife Sucheta Dalal As a rule, Moneylife advises readers to steer clear of highly volatile penny stocks that thrive on our bourses and dupe the gullible. They fluctuate between a few rupees to a few hundred rupees in a matter of months and there is little sympathy for retail speculators who lose their hoping to turn millionaires by finding a hidden diamond in online tip-sheets. Why does this go on unchecked? Because the regulator doesn't care.  We know that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) spends crores of rupees on its market surveillance software. It also claims to use artificial intelligence to track social media for insider trading. This is quite laughable when SEBI seems reluctant to use simple native intelligence. As a result, fake news websites, complete with cooked up research reports, operate openly through message boards of large media companies or with names that sound similar to well-regarded value investment forums....

Hindustan Times Zia Haq In a dispute, India has been accused of pursuing a policy to guarantee a high minimum price, known as fair and minimum price or FRP, for Indian cane-growers that has led production to spike. Along with this, Brazil flagged subsidies for sugar export. India has a “strong case” to fend off an attack on its price policy for some 55 million sugarcane farmers of the country at the World Trade Organisation by Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, a senior government official said on Thursday. “We will protect sugarcane subsidies at all costs because the sector needs government support. We are confident,” the official with knowledge of the matter said, after the government recently finished reviewing the matter. A panel of top WTO consultants aided the government in reviewing the sugarcane trade regime to avoid violating any WTO clause, he said. Brazil is the world’s largest sugarcane producer, while India occupies the second spot...

The Telegraph Recommendations sought on coveted 5G bands of 24.75-27.25GHz. The department of telecom (DoT) will soon seek sector regulator Trai’s recommendations on pricing and other modalities for coveted 5G bands of 24.75-27.25GHz, and wants to put this new spectrum up for auction sometime next year, sources said. This new 5G chunk is separate from the Rs 5.22 lakh crore spectrum sale plan approved by the Digital Communications Commission on December 20, under which 8,300MHz of airwaves across 22 circles are set to be put on the block in March-April 2020. The department of telecom (DoT) sources said the government will soon approach the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) for its recommendations on “millimetre wave bands” of 24.75-27.25GHz, the coveted bands for 5G. DoT plans to approach the regulator in January for views on these additional 5G bands, sources stated.  Although DoT ideally wants these bands to be put for sale earlier in the y...

The New York Times Declan Walsh and Ben Hubbard CAIRO — In the months since a missile and drone attack widely seen as the work of Iran left two Saudi oil facilities smoldering, the Saudi crown prince has taken an uncharacteristic turn to diplomacy to cool tensions with his regional enemies. The prince, Mohammed bin Salman, has stepped up direct talks with the rebels he has been fighting in Yemen for over four years, leading to a decline in attacks by both sides. He has made gestures to ease, if not end, the stifling blockade he and his allies imposed on his tiny, wealthy neighbor, Qatar. He has even engaged in indirect talks with the kingdom's archnemesis, Iran, to try to dampen the shadow war raging across the region. Fueling the shift from confrontation to negotiation, analysts say, is the sobering realization that a decades-old cornerstone of American policy in the Middle East —the understanding that the United States would defend the Saudi oil indust...

Business Line P. Manoj The port is of great strategic importance for the development of regional maritime transit traffic to Afghanistan and Central Asia. In a big breakthrough, the United States has given a written assurance to India that will help facilitate global banks to fund the purchase of equipment worth $85 million to be erected at Chabahar port which India is developing in Iran. In November 2018, the United States granted a waiver to the port from the sanctions it has imposed on the Persian Gulf nation.  “We have to procure equipment for running the port, but because of the US sanctions, we are not able to procure,” a government official briefed on the issue said. “We have placed the orders for equipment, some as long as two years ago, but we are not able to open a letter of credit (LCs). Banks are not coming forward. The US had earlier given verbal assurances (on the waiver fine print) but were very reluctant to give anything in writing, and the banks in...

India Today Sources said prima facie it appears that it is an attempt to smuggle military-grade aircraft launching gears in India or a matter of corporate espionage. Two military-grade aircraft launching gears weighing almost 11 kg, shipped from the US, mysteriously landed in "empty" containers at Mundra port in Gujarat on December 20. The investigating agencies are clueless about how these came to India. Authorities recovered the containers on December 20 during an investigation.  These military-grade aircraft launching gears are used when flying a fighter aircraft from an aircraft carrier.  Sources said prima facie it appears that it is an attempt to smuggle military-grade aircraft launching gears in India or a matter of corporate espionage. Security sources said the military-grade aircraft launching gears found at the Mundra port are manufactured by only two corporate giants, Boeing (based in the US) and Airbus (headquartered in Europe).  The shipment came...

The Indian Express Shaju Philip She hashtagged her post with “Reject CAA” and “Boycott NRC”. She also shared writer Arundhati Roy’s comments on the protests.  Days after a German student at IIT-Madras was asked to leave India for attending a protest against the new citizenship law, a Norwegian tourist at a Kerala protest has come under the scanner of the Foreigner Regional Registration Office (FRRO) in Kochi. Janne-Mette Johansson, 74, who is on a tourist visa, reached Kochi on December 17. According to her  Facebook  post, Johansson participated in a march in Kochi by various organisations against the new law on December 23. Kochi FRRO Anoop Krishnan said, “We came to know about her participation in the protest from her social media feed. We are inquiring into the details and verifying about her participation in the event and also any other previous incidents, if any. At present, we cannot come to a conclusion which can lead to any action against her.” ...

The Indian Express The attached properties included assets held by the Guptas in the name of Neesa Group of Companies, in a case of criminal misconduct and misappropriation of funds of MEGA project, officials added. The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Thursday attached properties worth Rs 36.12 crore of former IAS officer-turned-entrepreneur Sanjay Gupta and his wife Neelu under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, in an investigation related to MEGA (Metro Link Express for Gandhinagar and Ahmedabad Company Limited) scam. Gupta is in jail after Gandhinagar CID Crime Branch arrested him on May 14, 2015, following two cases of fraud pertaining to MEGA project against him and his associates and one by Gandhinagar Police. A team of ED Ahmedabad Zone attached properties, including “flats at Dhananjay Towers, Casela Towers, Agarwal Apartments, Cambay Hotel in Thaltej, and areas such as Satellite, Vejalpur, Jodhpur along with plots and factories at Visalpur, Changodar and Dask...

Business Standard His remarks come following India and Pakistan blaming each other over the lack of cooperation and coordination among the SAARC member states earlier this month. Enmity between India and Pakistan is one of the main reasons why  SAARC  is not prospering, Bangladesh Foreign Minister A K Abdul Momen has said, while expressing optimism about other regional initiatives such as the  BIMSTEC  and the BBIN. His remarks comes following India and Pakistan blaming each other over the lack of cooperation and coordination among the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) member states earlier this month. Momen, while interacting with a group of foreign journalists at the closing ceremony of 'Visit Nepal-Bangladesh Programme-2019' hosted by the Bangladesh Foreign Ministry here, said the prosperity of the  SAARC  was being obstructed by the enmity between India and Pakistan. "You know why  SAARC  is not prosper...