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The News Minutes: IANS: January 16, 2020 In trouble brewing for the Gautam Adani-led M/S Adani Enterprises, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday said that it has registered a case against former officials of the National Co-operative Consumer Federation (NCCF) and others over alleged irregularities in supply of coal to the Andhra Pradesh Power Generation Corporation (APGENCO) in 2010. The CBI in its FIR has named Virendra Singh, the then Chairman of the NCCF, G P Gupta, the then MD of the NCCF, S C Singhal, the then Senior Advisor of NCCF, Adani Enterprises Ltd and other unknown public servants and others for criminal conspiracy, cheating and criminal misconduct by public servants. According to CBI, the case was filed on Wednesday after the preliminary enquiry revealed the crime by the officials named in the FIR and the Adani Enterprises was found to be true. The FIR alleged that on June 26, 2010, APGENCO floated a tender enquiry for supply of six lakh

Millennium post: PTI: January 16, 2020 New Delhi: GMR Infrastructure on Thursday said it will sell 49 per cent stake instead of 44.44 per cent in its airport business to Tata Group subsidiary TRIL Urban Transport, as the group continues with efforts to trim its debt. The diversified group has decided to increase the quantum of stake sale nearly 10 months after announcing the deal, which also received green signal from the Competition Commission of India (CCI)in October last year. In a filing to the stock exchanges, GMR Infrastructure said it has decided to "increase the transaction size by agreeing to divest 49 per cent in GMR Airports Limited (vs previously agreed 44.44 per cent) to TRIL Urban Transport Private Limited (part of TATA Group), an affiliate of GIC and SSG Capital Management... in one or more tranches". The deal would be subject to regulatory approvals. An amended and restated Shares Subscription and Purchase Agreement and Shareholders Agreement has been

India Today: Divyesh Singh: January 16, 2020 The Mumbai Police and Maharashtra ATS have launched a manhunt to trace one of the most wanted terrorists in the country. Dr Jalees Ansari, also known as Dr Bomb, has been accused of plotting and executing over 50 bomb blasts across the country since early 90s. And he has gone missing during parole. Ansari, who is serving a life term in Ajmer jail, was visiting his family in Mumbai on parole and was due to report back at the prison on Friday morning. On Thursday, Ansari's family members in Mominpada approached the Agripada police station in Mumbai and said that he had gone missing. According to police officials, Ansari left for early morning namaz at around 5 am but did not return home. It was only after several hours had passed and his phone was found to be switched off. The Agripada police then sent an SOS alert at the police control room about Ansari and the same was passed to Maharashtra ATS. The Mumbai c

Tribune: January 16, 2020 The civil-military leadership has reiterated Pakistan’s “unshakable” political, diplomatic and moral support to the people of India Occupied Kashmir (IOK) who have been living under complete lockdown for over five-months following the abrogation of its special status. The resolution comes during a high-level huddle chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan in Islamabad on Thursday which reviewed all aspects of the situation in the disputed territory. “The meeting was attended by Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa, SAPM [Special Assistant to the Prime Minister] Dr Moeed Yousaf, DG ISI Lt-Gen Faiz Hamid, Foreign Secretary Sohail Mehmood and other senior military and civilian officials,” said an official statement issued by the Prime Minister Office. The participants condemned India’s inhuman clampdown of 8 million Kashmiris for over 160 days and “the egregious human rights violations of Kashmiris by over 900,000 Indian occupation forces”.

Economic Times:  Dipanjan Roy Chaudhury: January 17, 2020 NEW DELHI: China once again failed to achieve an outcome on the Kashmir issue at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). The US, UK, France and Russia, four permanent members of the UNSC, with the backing of Germany, prevented China from getting its way on the matter in the closed-door meeting in New York on Thursday morning India time. It was the second such meeting in the UNSC on Kashmir since August 2019. China sought a “closed-door consultation” under ‘AOB (any other business) at the UNSC after the listed issues were discussed. The meeting was based on an earlier request by Pakistan which was scheduled for December 24 last year but could not take place at the time. Barring China, all other 14 members of the UNSC were of the view that this was not a matter that needed discussion at this point, people aware of the matter told ET. India’s permanent representative to the UN, Syed Akbaruddin, said the outcom

Economic Times: PTI: January 16, 2020 BEIJING: China on Thursday played down Russia's backing for India and Brazil's entry into the UN Security Council as permanent member, saying all parties have "major differences" in the matter and instead advocated for a "package solution". Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, during his visit to New Delhi on Wednesday, backed India and Brazil to be permanent members of the UNSC. "We are convinced that the overriding trend of the global development is the objective process of the formation of new centres of economic might, financial power and political influence and India is obviously one of them," Lavrov said. Reacting to Lavrov's statement, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said member countries of the UN have differences over reforms in the world body. China, which has veto power in the UNSC being one of its five permanent members, has been stonewalling India's e

Economic Times: PTI: January 16, 2020 New Delhi: Traders' body CAIT on Thursday said it has completed a pilot in Madhya Pradesh to create individual e-stores for traders, and will soon launch the same at a national level. Asserting that Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) is not against e-commerce, its Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal said the body is against companies that are "flouting FDI Policy of the Government for their own gains". "We are not against e-commerce and (are) rather of the considered opinion that e-commerce is a rapidly growing future mode of business and have undertaken a task to align the trading community with e-commerce by creating individual e-store of every trader in the country," Khandelwal said. He added that a pilot of the said project has already been completed in Madhya Pradesh and very soon, it will be launched at national level. "However, we are against the Companies which are flouting FDI Policy of the G

Business Line: LN Revathy: January 14, 2020 Troubled over the steep escalation in cotton prices and the Cotton Corporation of India’s (CCI) cotton trading policy, the mill sector has appealed to Union Textile Minister Smriti Irani to intervene and direct CCI to arrest the price rise. Accusing the corporation of holding large volumes of cotton and quoting prices higher than market rates, industry sources said, “The Minister had revamped the CCI cotton trading policy and brought uniformity in the benefits extended by CCI (irrespective of volume) to protect the spinning units in the MSME sector. The Corporation’s present stand is not only affecting market sentiments but putting the competitiveness of the user industry at stake.” “The minimum support price (MSP) was fixed at ₹5,550 a quintal and CCI covered around 50 per cent of the arrivals. CCI started procuring cotton in November, but began offering the same only last week and that too after accumulating over 35 lakh bales. The

Business Line: January 16, 2020 Edible oil industry has expressed the fear that last week’s decision by the Centre to restrict refined palm oil imports may turn out to be a futile exercise as importers may rush to get licences for palm oil imports. The Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA) has sought quantitative restrictions on new import licences. Import restrictions The Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) on January 8 amended the policy item under Exim Code 1511 90 to regulate the import of refined palm oil. It placed RBD Palm Oil and RBD Palmolein under the “restricted list.” As per the change in policy, the imports of refined palm oil will now be have to be subjected to licence to be issued by DGFT. There being no restrictions on the issuance of new licences for import of refined palm oil, the trade fears that refined palm oil will be dumped in India. “We fear this (issuance of new import licenses) has the potential of opening the floodgat

Hindustan Times, Roshan kishore, January 16, 2020 The Indian economy is in a peculiar situation. The non-food economy is facing a serious crisis of demand. This crisis has come at a time when the food, especially the vegetable economy, has been hit by a massive supply shock. Given the structural asymmetry and inequality in the Indian economy, the macroeconomic indicators have been affected very differently. Since food prices have a bigger weight in the inflation basket, the headline retail inflation number, captured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), has reached a five-and-a-half year high at 7.35% in December. Yet, nominal GDP growth in 2019-20 is expected to be 7.5%, the lowest since 1975-76. This is 4.5 percentage points less than the 12% figure assumed in last year’s Union budget, and will create a big crisis on the revenue front. This situation calls for a serious rethink in policy approach towards the food economy. Here’s why. As the economy is getting modernised, the s

The Hindu, Sriram Lakshman, January 15, 2020 “Pakistan’s practice of using false pretenses to distract from addressing the malaise that afflicts it has run its course today,” India’s UN envoy Syed Akbaruddin told The Hindu after the informal “closed consultations” at the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the second such meeting in five months, had concluded on Wednesday afternoon. It was learnt that the situation in Kashmir was to be raised at the meeting. “We are happy that neither the alarmist scenario painted by the representatives of Pakistan nor any of the baseless allegations made repeatedly by representatives of Pakistan in UN fora were found to be credible today,” Mr. Akbaruddin said. The ambassador said the discussion was viewed as a  “distraction” and that  “many friends” had pointed out that bilateral mechanisms were available to address issues between India and Pakistan. Russia called for differences between India and Pakistan to be settled bilateral