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The Indian Express June 24, 2020 Posted by Subhajit Roy Russia has emerged, all of a sudden, as a key diplomatic player amid the tension between India and China. *  On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hosts the Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral foreign ministers’ meeting, which will be the first opportunity for External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi for face-time with each other over videoconference. Jaishankar and Wang, who is also Chinese State Councillor, had an angry phone call on June 17 over the June 15 border clash, in which  20 Indian soldiers were killed . *  On Wednesday, Moscow will  host Defence Minister Rajnath Singh  and his Chinese counterpart, Wei Fenghe, who will attend the  Victory Day parade  on June 24, along with Indian and Chinese marching contingents. While these are ministerial-level engagements, there have been at least two outreaches between India and Russia through diplomatic channels. *

The Indian Express June 23, 2020 US President Donald Trump has issued a proclamation to suspend issuing of H-1B visas, which is popular among  Indian IT professionals , along with other foreign work visas for the rest of the year. Trump said the step was essential to help millions of Americans who have lost their jobs due to the current economic crisis. Issuing the proclamation ahead of the November presidential elections, Trump has ignored the mounting opposition to the order by various business organisations, lawmakers and human rights bodies.The proclamation that comes into effect on June 24, is expected to impact a large number of Indian IT professionals and several American and Indian companies who were issued H-1B visas by the US government for the fiscal year 2021 beginning October 1. Explained: How US pause on work visas will impact Indian companies They would now have to wait at least till the end of the current year before approaching the US diplomatic missions

The Telegraph June 23, 2020 R eliance Industries on Monday became the first Indian firm to hit a market valuation of $150 billion during the day. In the morning trade, the company’s market valuation jumped Rs 28,248.97 crore to Rs 11,43,667 crore ($150 billion) on the BSE. However, it failed to continue the momentum and at the close of the trade, the company’s market valuation remained at Rs 11,07,620.56 crore ($145.68 billion). The heavyweight stock surged 2.53 per cent to a record high of Rs 1,804.10 during the day on the BSE. However, fag-end selling emerged on the counter and it declined 0.70 per cent to close at Rs 1,747.20. On the NSE, it erased all early gains and closed at Rs 1,752.50, 0.39 per cent lower after rising 2.54 per cent to an all-time high of Rs 1,804.20 during the day. RIL on Friday became the first Indian company to cross the Rs 11-lakh crore market valuation mark. Its market valuation crossed Rs 11 lakh crore in the previous session as its share pri

The Mint June 22, 2020 Posted by  Prashant K. Nanda Rural India could be bouncing back to life with unemployment rate dropping to 7.26% in the week ended 21 June against 10.96% in the preceding week as more livelihood avenues open up. In contrast, urban India continues to see higher joblessness while it struggles with the rise in covid-19 cases.  The fall in rural unemployment rate to below 8% is the lowest in three months, and even lower than the week before the country went into a lockdown on 25 March. According to fresh data released by the Centre for Monitoring of Indian Economy (CMIE), in the week ended 21 June, the overall employment rate was recorded at 8.48%, over three percentage points lower than last week. In the pre-lockdown week, the job loss rate in rural India was 8.29% and overall unemployment rate was 8.41%.  The urban unemployment rate stayed stubborn at 11.19% indicative of the impact of the spread of covid-19 in cities and the revival time for formal

The Hindu June 22, 2020 The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) has issued an advisory warning of a large-scale phishing campaign against Indian citizens and businesses aimed at stealing their personal and financial information. In the advisory, issued late of Saturday, the country’s nodal agency for cyber security said the attackers were likely to use COVID-19 as bait while impersonating government authorities to deceive users into divulging information or downloading malicious files. “It has been reported that malicious actors are planning a large-scale phishing attack campaign against Indian individuals and businesses [small, medium and large enterprises]. The phishing campaign is expected to use malicious emails under the pretext of local authorities in charge of dispensing government-funded COVID-19 support initiatives,” the advisory said. Fake websites It added that such emails are designed to drive recipients towards fake websites where they are de

The National Herals June 21, 2020 The Indian economy is in a tailspin and India may actually be looking at something worse than a recession. India has never faced a sustained long-term downturn in economic activity in its 73 years of existence as an independent country. But there is now every possibility that India is looking at a ‘depression’ for the first time in its history, a possibility flagged by several economists. While everyone now has accepted the inevitable, that the GDP will contract in the current financial year (2020- 2021), the estimates vary. The World Bank pegs it at 3.2 per cent while Crisil puts it at 5 per cent. An RBI survey paints the rosiest picture as of June 10, saying that the economy will contract by only 1.5 per cent. However, several economists warn that the impact will likely be much worse. Surajit Das, assistant professor at JNU’s Centre for Economic Studies and Planning (CESP), puts a perspective to the situation.

The Indian Express June 21, 2020 Posted by Meghnad Desai The Chinese feel that two centuries since the Opium war signalled its decline, it is now a powerful nation. It wants to be on top, the Middle Earth — as it believes it was. India never was a single Empire; not even the Mughals ruled over all of it. In the second millennium of the Common Era, England and France fought each other off and on for 800 years — across the English Channel, in Europe, in India, and North America. The result was a draw, though each thinks it won. Then, in the twentieth century, they made Entente Cordiale — an alliance which has stayed for a hundred years and more. India and China have been in stand-off hostility since the late 1950s when India discovered the Chinese incursion into Aksai Chin, ‘a region where not a blade of grass grew’ as Jawaharlal Nehru told the Lok Sabha, hoping to avoid conflict. His attempts at negotiating with Zhou Enlai failed. The nation wanted Nehru to act. He gave orde

The Indian Express June 21, 2020 The government has clarified that the order to remove Chinese apps is fake and no such instructions have been given to Google or Apple.A message has been circulating on social media claiming that the National Informatics Centre under the Ministry of Electronics and IT has issued an order instructing the restriction of certain Chinese apps on Google Play Store and Apple App Store. The government has clarified that the order is fake and no such instructions have been given to Google or Apple. The message says that the government of India has directed the regional executive and representatives of Google and Apple to “restrict the functioning of Chinese applications from the respective stores with immediate effect”. These apps include TikTok, VMate, Vigo Video, LiveMe, Bigo Live, Beauty Plus, CamScanner, Club Factory, Shein, Romwe, and AppLock. The list also includes games like Mobile Legends, Clash of Kings, and Gale of Sultans. The message say

The Firstpost June 20, 2020 Posted by  Sulekha Nair   There are two extreme situations being noticed currently with regards to funding in the startup sector. While on the one hand, a handful of startups have raised millions from established and reputed names from the corporate world in the time of COVID-19, on the other hand, more than 40 percent of Indian startups and SMEs have run out of cash. For instance, Myelin Foundry, a deep tech AI startup, recently raised further funding from Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan’s family office “Pratithi”. It had raised $1 million in seed round in September 2019 led by Endiya Partners. The company was founded in January 2019 by Gopichand Katragadda, Ganesh Suryanarayanan and Aditi Olemann.  Similarly, Mahindra Group chairman Anand Mahindra recently invested $1 million (about Rs 7.5 crore) in Gurugram-based Hapramp, a startup working on technologies like blockchain and data protection in social media. The startup was founded in 20

The Firstpost June 20, 2020 Posted by By Chuck Mikolajczak The U.S. healthcare sector looks set for a bulked up profile in growth indexes when FTSE Russell reconstitutes its stock indexes late next Friday, an annual event that historically creates one of the biggest trading volume days of the year. The Russell rebalance becomes final on the fourth Friday every June, after markets close. Stocks are added or deleted from Russell's family of indexes, including the Russell 1000 large cap and Russell 2000 small cap, prompting fund managers to adjust portfolios to reflect new weightings and components. Russell bases the placesment in the indexes on a number of factors, including market capitalization, voting rights requirements and country of domicile. Telegraphing the reconstitution can create additional buying and selling stocks. Some investors may use the additional liquidity to take advantage of any resulting price dislocations, or to adjust the holdings in thei

The Hindu June 21, 2020 Posted by Radheyshyam Jadhav India imports various bulk drugs/active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for producing medicines. About two-thirds of the total imports of bulk drugs and drug intermediates are from China. As calls for a boycott on Chinese goods and materials gains momentum, this statistic bears significance. Reference:  https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/china-accounts-for-two-thirds-of-indias-bulk-drug-imports/article31881676.ece

The Hindu June 21, 2020 Posted by Prashasti Awasthi The Centre has asked people to be wary of any site trying to mimic official communication on coronavirus data in order to steal personal data and financial information, in what would be a massive phishing attack, an NDTV report said. The attack will begin today and the suspicious email site could be ncov2019@ gov.in , the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team or CERT-In tweeted. CERT-In, under the Information Technology Ministry, works to protect Indians from cyber threats. "The phishing campaign is expected to use malicious emails under the pretext of local authorities in charge of dispensing government-funded Covid-19 support initiatives. Such emails are designed to drive recipients towards fake websites, where they are deceived into downloading malicious files or entering personal and financial information," CERT-In said in a statement cited in the NDTV report. Phishing attacks are attacks where malicious

The Hindu June 21, 2020 India has questioned the rationale of joint statements issued by some countries at the World Trade Organization (WTO) pushing for greater opening of markets for agricultural products. It has argued that for developing countries, export restrictions are a tool to prevent domestic shortages and are essen tial. The country made a case against permanent tariff concessions or a dilution of the tariff bindings at a special meeting of the Committee on Agriculture (CoA) in Geneva recently. “Members reviewed a number of farm-support packages and export-restrictive measures adopted as response to the Covid-19 crisis,” a trade official in Geneva told  BusinessLine . While India asked other countries to formulate a “balanced, inclusive and calibrated” response to Covid-19, it disagreed with the idea of permanent tariff concessions, or a dilution of the tariff bindings as a response to a temporary crisis. New Delhi also warned about a growing narrative that seek