Happy Media

Indian Express Dated: June 12, 2020 By: Shubhajit Roy In its ‘International Religious Freedom Report’ for 2019, the  United States  administration has given a detailed account of the protests and criticism against the Indian government’s decisions on the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and  Article 370 . The report, released by US Secretary of State Michael R Pompeo on Thursday, also talks about “religiously inspired mob violence, lynching and communal violence”, and says that “some officials of Hindu-majority parties, including from the  Bharatiya Janata Party  ( BJP ), made inflammatory public remarks or social media posts against minority communities”. Calling it an “internal report” of the US government, the Indian government said Washington has “no locus standi” to comment on the issue. Responding to questions on the report, the Ministry of External Affairs’ official spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said, “The report is published annually by the US State Departm

The Indian Express Dated: June 12, 2020 By: Aashish Aryan, Ananthakrishnan G The Supreme Court Thursday said the demand by the Department of Telecommunications for dues to the tune of Rs 3 lakh crore in adjusted gross revenue (AGR) from non-telecom public sector undertakings was “wholly impermissible” and asked the DoT to withdraw it. Thursday’s order, which will provide a major relief to GAIL India Ltd, Oil India Ltd, PowerGrid, RailTel and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, comes almost eight months after the October 24, 2019, Supreme Court judgment. “Outright misuse of our verdict…This is wholly and totally impermissible,” Justice Arun Mishra observed as a bench comprising him, Justices S Abdul Nazeer and M R Shah, was hearing a government plea to allow private operators pay their AGR dues in a staggered manner over 20 years. The order is significant since the Rs 3 lakh crore demand from non-telecom PSUs accounts for almost 65 per cent of the total Rs 4.7 lakh crore

The Indian Express Dated: June 12, 2020 By: Shyam Saran On June 10, Nepal’s House of Representatives unanimously approved the tabling of an amendment to the country’s constitution which will now formally depict nearly 400 sq km of Indian territory extending west from the Lipulekh Pass, and including it, as part of Nepal’s sovereign territory. While it remains to be passed by the Upper House and signed by the president, the die has been cast. In doing so, Nepal has etched its territorial claim in stone which would make any concession by this or any future government of Nepal virtually unthinkable. After the vote, Nepal’s Foreign Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali declared: “We are for starting dialogue soon. The problem will be resolved through diplomacy.” Short of expecting India to accept the fait accompli determined unilaterally by Nepal, what will diplomacy achieve? India should be prepared to engage in a dialogue on this and other outstanding border issues, but Nepal’s b

The Indian Express Dated: June 12, 2020 By: Amitabh Sinha The number of people who have  recovered from Covid-19 disease in India is now more than  those who are still sick. The Home Ministry’s latest update on Thursday showed that 1.41 lakh people had recovered from the disease, while a little more than 1.37 lakh cases were active. Apart from being an interesting milestone, this statistic has little relevance. This doesn’t mark the beginning of the end of the epidemic, nor is it the  arrival of the “peak” . It does not mean either that the number of cases would be declining from now on. In fact, once the number of deaths is brought into the equation, 8,102 at last count, it becomes clear that less than 50 per cent of the total infected people (2.86 lakh) have recovered so far. The total recoveries, in fact, work out to 49 per cent of all cases. More importantly, total recoveries and the number of active cases are not comparable metrics. Total recoveries account for

Hindustan Times Dated: June 10, 2020 The government’s ambitious Rs 3 lakh crore rescue package for small- and medium-sized businesses is struggling to take off as a host of issues have hobbled its implementation. Lenders awaiting the fineprint of the aid package from Reserve Bank of India (RBI), continue to be cautious about lending to small businesses due to poor demand outlook and risk aversion, two people aware of the issues said. The size of the package notwithstanding, public sector banks have so far sanctioned loans worth only Rs 1,109 crore to micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in 12 states under the Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme, or ECLGS. Of this, Rs 599 crore has already been disbursed to 17,904 accounts, according to data compiled by the department of financial services. Uncertain business outlook has made bank finance difficult for many small businesses, especially in manufacturing. Despite the government push, many lenders view micro, sma

Hindustan Times Dated: June 10, 2020 By: Harshit Sabarwal The global economy will contract at least six percent this year due to economic shutdowns to contain the coronavirus outbreak, the OECD said Wednesday, warning that recovery will be “slow and uncertain”. In the case of a second wave of contagion later in the year, world economic output could shrink by as much as 7.6 percent in 2020, it said. This would be followed in 2021 by GDP growth of between 2.8 and 5.2 percent. “By the end of 2021, the loss of income exceeds that of any previous recession over the last 100 years outside wartime, with dire and long-lasting consequences for people, firms and governments,” the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said in its latest outlook, entitled “World Economy on a Tightrope”. “Private debt levels are uncomfortably high in some countries and business failure and bankruptcy risks loom large.” In a previous report in March, by when the outbreak had hit Chi

Hindustan Times Dated: June 11, 2020 Oil declined in New York as an increase in American crude stockpiles to a record high raised fresh concerns about excess supply, while the Federal Reserve forecast a long road to recovery for the US economy. Futures lost 3.2% to drop below $39 a barrel, erasing all of the gains from the previous session. US crude inventories unexpectedly rose last week, even as oil production fell, while gasoline stockpiles also saw a surprise expansion. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said the pandemic could inflict longer-lasting damage on the economy and the central bank signaled it would keep rates near zero possibly for years to come. Global production cuts and the easing of lockdowns in some countries has pushed prices higher after oil plunged below zero in April. However, the recovery is expected to be fragile and uneven, and there are concerns US producers may pump more with crude above $30 a barrel, adding to a glut. “Prices may have run ahead of t

Hindustan Times Dated: June 11, 2020 By: Shankhyaneel Sarkar Pakistan on Wednesday voiced concern over Israel’s plan of annexing a large portion of the West Bank and urged it to refrain from taking any unilateral action. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi attended a virtual meeting of the foreign ministers of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to discuss Israel’s threat to annex territories in the West Bank. Israel was “urged to refrain from taking any unilateral action that would lead to the annexation of any occupied Palestinian territory in violation of relevant UN resolutions and international law,” the Foreign Office said. While reaffirming Pakistan’s solidarity with the people of Palestine, Qureshi reiterated call for the establishment of a viable, independent and contiguous State of Palestine, on the basis of internationally agreed parameters, the pre-1967 borders with Jerusalem as its capital. The OIC is a 57-member grouping of Muslim majority nat

Hindustan Times Dated: June 11, 2020 By: Prashasti Singh The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday signaled it plans years of extraordinary support for an economy facing a torturous slog back from the coronavirus pandemic, with policymakers projecting the economy to shrink 6.5% in 2020 and the unemployment rate to be 9.3% at year’s end. In the first economic projections of the pandemic era, US central bank policymakers put into numbers what has been an emerging narrative: that the shutdowns, restrictions and other measures used to battle a health crisis will echo through the economy for years to come rather than be quickly reversed as commerce reopens. Some 20 million or more people have been thrown out of work since February, and Fed Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged it could take years for them to all reacquire jobs - an economic blow that is falling heaviest on minority communities at a time when mass protests over police brutality have thrown a new spotlight on racial inequal