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Firstpost March 12, 2020 1.Turkey, Uganda and Brazil are all bound by their commitments under the 1951 Refugee Convention. Unlike India, they can be held accountable under international standards. 2.In many ways, the Turkish and Ugandan policies illustrate the indicative nature of the Convention and its protocol, in both cases, policies have been framed prioritising local needs, aspirations and economic realities. 3.India can look to emulate these approaches by examining refugee integration in the long term while modifying its response based on in the number of arrivals  Brazil,  Uganda, Turkey. Editor's Note: Within the larger framework of the raging Citizenship Amendment Act debate, what best practices in terms of refugee policy can we turn to? This series compares India to other ethnically diverse countries of the Global South experiencing refugee influx.  Part 1 features  countries, like India, that have also not signed the 1951 Refugee ...

Moneycontrol March 09, 2020 The Supreme Court of India’s ruling overturning the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) ban on offering banking services to cryptocurrency transactions is a positive move for the industry. The RBI ban imposed in April 2018 throttled a wide range of cryptocurrency-based activity in India, for almost two years. Cryptocurrency trading was not banned and peer-to-peer trading continued even after the RBI’s circular .However, the central bank prohibited banks from cryptocurrency-based activity, and did not allow access, flow and use of fiat currency for crypto transactions. This was a big deterrent. Many companies, financial institutions, and exchanges dealing with cryptos had their bank accounts closed, terminated or deactivated in the last two years. One bank went to the extent of deactivating individuals’ accounts by analysing their account transaction activity and linking them with crypto transactions. Trading and speculation has and still remains th...

Moneycontrol March 10, 2020 The coronavirus outbreak could cost the global economy up to $2 trillion this year, the UN's trade and development agency said, warning that shock from the epidemic will cause a recession in some countries and depress global annual growth to below 2.5 per cent. "We envisage a slowdown in the global economy to under two per cent for this year, and that will probably cost in the order of $1 trillion, compared with what people were forecasting back in September,” Director, Division on Globalization and Development Strategies at United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) Richard Kozul-Wright said. The UN agency said that apart from the tragic human consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic, the economic uncertainty it has sparked will likely cost the global economy $1 trillion in 2020. A preliminary downside scenario sees a $2 trillion shortfall in global income with a $220 billion hit to developing countries (excluding ...

Tribune March 12, 2020 American forces have started pulling out of two bases in Afghanistan, a US official said Tuesday, the day peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban were due to start despite widespread violence and a political crisis. The United States is keen to end its longest-ever conflict, and under the terms of a deal signed in Doha last month has said all foreign forces will quit Afghanistan within 14 months — provided the Taliban stick to their security commitments. Under the accord, the US is initially supposed to cut its troop presence from about 12,000 currently to 8,600 by mid-July, and close five of its roughly 20 bases across the country. Troops have started leaving one base in Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand province in the south, and another base in Herat in the east, a US official told AFP on the condition of anonymity. Even with the drawdown, US forces retain “all the military means and authorities to accomplish our objectives”, Colone...

Dailyhunt March 10, 2020 A leader from Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) lambasted on Pakistan for using the occupied region as a launching pad for terrorists and extremists, which heavily causes civilian casualties. Speaking to ANI here in Geneva at a conference titled 'Contemporary challenges in the State of Jammu and Kashmir to combating terrorism, extremism and human rights violations', exiled Kashmiri leader, Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri asks Pakistan to stop funding and breeding the terrorists. 'The big challenge in our region, specially in the state of Jammu and Kashmir is extremism and terrorism. So, we are trying our best to strengthen the civil society and highlighting their miseries and through world community put pressure on Pakistan that Pakistan should stop funding and supporting terrorism and the infrastructure of terrorists must be dismantled in PoK and Pakistan should stop funding them', said Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri, Chairman of United Kashmir ...

Dailyhunt March 10, 2020 The CBI has filed a charge sheet against aviation consultant Deepak Talwar for allegedly diverting Rs 90.72 crore received by his NGO Advantage India from a European defence manufacturer in violation of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), officials said on Monday. Talwar is already in prison in cases relating to alleged corruption in lobbying for aviation deals, they said. The charge sheet was filed after nearly two years of investigation in which the agency has named Talwar, Advantage India, some officials of the NGO among others, they said. The agency had taken over this case in November 2017 on a reference from the Home Ministry by registering an FIR against Talwar, Advantage India, According Health Care Pvt. Ltd. among others under IPC sections related to criminal conspiracy, forgery and provisions of FCRA act 2010. In its FIR, the agency had alleged that Talwar and his NGO received funds from a Europe-based defence man...

Dailyhunt March 11, 2020 The cryptocurrency market has made great progress since the conception of Bitcoin in 2009. Crypto-traders in the market have seen the market at its best and its worst, opting to look at the positives and march on. The growth in crypto-use has been multifold over the decade and the same was reflected when aggregate transactions per year surpassed the 1 billion mark in 2019. According to data provider Blocknative, 2019 turned out to be the most popular year in the history of crypto-transactions. In its recent research, the report claimed, "Significantly, we crossed the 1 billion aggregate transactions per year threshold in 2019. In fact, more than 37% (>1.1 billion) of all blockchain transactions in history occurred in 2019." Source: When One Billion Ethereum Transactions? The attached chart reflected the growth in Bitcoin and Ethereum transactions over time. According to the report, in 2019, BTC and ETH represented nearly 44% ...

The Indian Express March 12, 2020 Saddled with burgeoning bad loans, banks are exercising caution while taking exposure to large enterprises due to apprehension on assets quality, lower economic growth and sector-specific risks, as per the Ficci-Indian Banks Association Banking Survey. According to the survey, 41 per cent of respondent banks reported tightening of credit standards for large enterprises, as against 48 per cent in the last round, and 64 per cent in the survey round previous to that — indicating continuous improvement in funding. As much as 59 per cent of the respondents reported the credit standards having remained same as against 48 per cent of the banks reporting the same in the last round. “None of the respondent banks have eased the standards for large enterprises in the current round,” it said. For small and medium enterprises (SMEs), as against 17 per cent of the respondent banks reporting easing of credit standards in the last round, 44 per cent of ...

The Indian Express March 12, 2020 BharatNet as an idea is good, but the challenges of Right of Way as well as the lack of last-mile connectivity, which were not taken into factor when the project began, are likely to delay the completion of the gram panchayat internet connectivity project, STL Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Anand Agarwal told The Indian Express. “BharatNet is almost like a spur network, a block to panchayat connectivity. The model itself of BBNL (Bharat Broadband Network Limited) doing it and not tying the rental and service part together as well as lack of end-to-end connectivity is lacking,” Agarwal said, adding the issue was over-committing and under-delivering. The government had aimed to connect 2.5 lakh gram panchayats with internet by March 2020. “Nowhere in the world can you say that you will connect so many villages and by spending what they are spending, which is around Rs 20,000 crore. Overall, it needs to pushing in two dimensions of assu...

Firstpost March 12, 2020 1.Indian auto industry had already maintained an inventory in the beginning of the year in anticipation of the Chinese New Year holiday but with the current lockdown in China, supply for BS-VI vehicles is likely to get impacted, SIAM President Ranjan Wadhera said 2.The auto industry body said disruption in availability of these parts is likely to critically hamper production across all segments, namely passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles, three-wheelers, two-wheelers and gravely affecting electric vehicles 3.Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) has been in touch with the government with specific recommendations on behalf of the auto industry, he added Vehicle production across all categories is likely to be critically hampered due to the coronavirus outbreak in China as many automakers in India import about 10 percent of their raw materials from the neighbouring nation, auto industry body SIAM said on Wednesday. Automobile p...