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The Tatva July 30, 2020          The expansionist agenda of the world’s second-largest economy is no secret, especially to it’s immediate neighbours. When the world is fighting the China infused Covid-19 pandemic, the same country is using it’s military and economy to bully nations all over the world. Understanding this, nations are now grouping to give China a lesson of it’s own medicine, by isolating it and hurting where it hurts the most. A look at how it’s China v/s the Rest of the World: India v/s China: Following the LAC clashes, India has banned around a 100 Chinese apps with more than 200 to more under the scanner. There have been a spur of contract cancellations given to Chinese firms. A strong anti-China sentiment can be seen with a series of regulations and military aggression at the border as well as the oceans through which China’s trade lines pass. USA v/s China: The most powerful economy has placed several trade and economic sanct...

The Hindu July 30, 2020       Pakistan’s Senate on Thursday unanimously approved two Bills related to the tough conditions set by the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog FATF, a day after they were passed in the National Assembly amidst vociferous protest from the Opposition parties. The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Amendment Bill, 2020, and the Anti-Terrorism Act Amendment Bill, 2020, were presented by Advisor to Prime Minister on Parliamentary Affairs Senator Babar Awan. The Bills include measures of freezing and seizure of assets, travel ban, and arms embargo on the entities and individuals, who are designated on the sanctions list of the United Nations and impose heavy fine and long term jails for those facilitating militancy. The two Bills passed by the National Assembly on Wednesday fulfil various requirements of the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) which put Pakistan on its grey list in June 2016 after ...

Money control July 30, 2020         HDFC Chairman Deepak Parekh on July 30 urged state governments to offer sweeteners to homebuyers by providing temporary stamp duty waivers to boost housing demand. “Customers today prefer ready-to-move-in homes over those under construction. I do hope that some state governments will offer some sweeteners like say a temporary stamp duty waiver to encourage more homebuyers,” Parekh told shareholders at the 43rd Annual General Meeting of HDFC. In the residential sector, he said inherent demand for home loans continues to remain strong and the combination of low interest rates, fiscal incentives and softening of realty prices bodes well for new homebuyers. With regard to the housing sector, he said the inherent demand for home loans continues to remain strong and the combination of low interest rates, fiscal incentives and softening of realty prices bodes well for new homebuyers. He also discounted the impact of w...

Daily Hunt July 30, 2020         India's Finance Ministry is considering an amnesty program for residents with illicit stash of gold, as part of an effort to crack down on tax evasion and cut its dependence on imports, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Under the proposition made to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government plans to ask people with unaccounted holdings of the metal to declare it to tax authorities and pay levies, penalty, the people said, asking not to be identified citing rules on speaking to the media. The proposal is at an early stage and authorities are seeking feedback from concerned officials, they said. Modi unveiled three state-backed plans in 2015 to try to tap the world's largest private gold stash of about 25,000 tons held by households and institutions to trim physical demand, and reduce imports by providing people with alternative avenues for investment. The programs failed to generate interest as a section of...

CBS News July 29, 2020        The USDA and agriculture officials across the U.S. have issued warnings about unsolicited shipments of foreign seeds and advised people not to plant them. Officials are concerned the mystery seeds, which appear to have originated in China, could be invasive plant species. CBS News has confirmed that residents in all 50 states have now reported receiving suspicious packages of seeds. "USDA is aware that people across the country have received suspicious, unsolicited packages of seed that appear to be coming from China," the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said in a statement Tuesday. It said it is working closely with federal and state partners, including Customs and Border Protection, to investigate. "Pls don't plant seeds from unknown origins!" the agency tweeted. State agriculture officials in Virginia warned, "Invasive species wreak havoc on the environment, displace or destroy...

The Indian Express July 31st , 2020 To upgrade the country’s railway system, the NDA government has laid the roadmap for long-term partnerships with the private sector. The government envisages around Rs 50 lakh crore of investment in rail projects up to 2030, but as per the Union Budget 2019, only a part of it can be financed through government coffers, and public-private partnerships are needed for faster development. The decision to allow private players to run passenger trains stems from that policy. Why private players It is estimated that almost 70 per cent of freight trains, which now jostle for space with passenger trains on the overcrowded Indian Railway network, will shift to the two upcoming Dedicated Freight Corridors from December 2021. This will free up a lot capacity to introduce more passenger trains with better services and higher speeds. In the normal course, demand for train seats is much more than available, on all busy routes. The result – waitin...

NEWS18 July 28, 2020 Amid the COVID-19 outbreak, 80 lakh Employee Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) subscribers have withdrawn as much as Rs 30,000 crore in less than four months starting from April. The amount withdrawn by EPFO subscribers exceeded the usual outgo recorded during the period, which could be due to layoffs, pay cuts and medical expenses, according to a report by The Economic Times. "Of the total withdrawals, nearly three million beneficiaries withdrew upwards of Rs 8,000 crore under the Covid window while the rest Rs 22,000 crore was a general withdrawal by five million EPFO subscribers, mainly as medical advance," an official told the publication. Responding to the report, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Tuesday alleged that people's jobs and savings have been "snatched" but they are still being shown "lofty false dreams". "Snatched jobs, grabbed savings, could not even stop the disease from spreading. But...

MEDIUM August 22, 2019 Data privacy is a hot topic right now. Scandals such as Cambridge Analytica, where the personal data of 87 million Facebook users were collected by the British consulting firm without permission, angered and dismayed in equal measure. The Netflix documentary The Great Hack provides an excellent portrayal of events. The incident demonstrated to us all how powerless we users are on the vast platforms of the internet’s largest corporations. But there are positives we can take from such incidents. It has propelled data privacy to the forefront of the public consciousness, forcing the average user to think more deeply about what they share online, how their data is used by the platforms, and the lack of control we really have over our data. Facebook is not alone in capturing the headlines for all the wrong reasons, Google has also been dragged into the mire. In late 2018 it was reported that third-party Gmail app developers could access users emails and as...

LIVEMINT July 30, 2020 Growing anti-China sentiments in India and the government ban on Chinese apps seems to have helped global companies more than those from India. According to app analytics firm Sensor Tower, only one of the top three apps that gained from the ban on TikTok was Indian—Roposo. The other two were New York-based Dubsmash and short-video app Zili, which is owned by Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi. The number of installations of Zili app surged nearly threefold in the three weeks following the June-end ban on TikTok, rising to 8 million installs from about 3 million in the prior period. Installations of Chinese Snack Video rose to a lifetime high of 23.5 million downloads from India and ranked No.1 on Apple’s App Store in the week of 13 July. Both Zili and Snack Video may face bans in the future, according to recent reports, but they are fully operational in the country right now. A survey by influencer marketing firm, Influencer.in, found most of th...

HINDUSTAN TIMES July 30, 2020 The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) related legislation will move the country from grey list to white list, Pakistan foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi claimed on Wednesday. “This FATF-related legislation will move us to the white list from grey list,” he was quoted as saying while speaking over FATF-related legislation from the Parliament. According to a Dawn report, the Pakistan government on Wednesday “managed to get two Financial Action Task Force (FATF)-related bills passed by the National Assembly amidst a noisy protest by the opposition.” Last month, India had stated that Pakistan continuing to be in Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF) ‘Grey List’ vindicates its position that Islamabad has not taken appropriate action against terror financing and safe havens which exist in that country. “Pakistan continues to be on the FATF’s Grey List. It is yet to show action on 13 out of 27 items of its FATF Action Plan. This is des...

HINDUSTAN TIMES JULY 30, 2020 India’s development and security cooperation with smaller Indian Ocean states has been a key part of its “neighbourhood first” policy, with work continuing on projects in areas ranging from healthcare to defence amid the Covid-19 pandemic, people familiar with developments said on Wednesday. Mauritius has benefited from a special economic package of $353 million, with one of the key projects – the new Supreme Court building – set to be inaugurated by the prime ministers of the two countries during a virtual event on Thursday. The other infrastructure projects that were part of the package are the Metro Express project worth $275 million, the first phase of which has been completed, a $14-million ENT Hospital, which has been completed, and a social housing project with nearly 1,000 units. India is the largest development partner for Mauritius, for which it has provided lines of credit worth $600 million at concessional terms, with the fo...

FINANCIAL POST JULY 30, 2020 A government audit of India’s flagship payments processor last year found more than 40 security vulnerabilities including several it called “critical” and “high” risk, according to an internal government document seen by Reuters. The audit, which took place over four months to February 2019, highlighted a lack of encryption of personal data at the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) which forms the backbone of the country’s digital payments system and operates the RuPay card network championed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The March 2019 government document cited the storing of 16-digit card numbers and other personal information such as customer names, account numbers and national identity numbers in “plain text” in some databases, leaving the data unprotected if the system was breached. The audit has not previously been reported. The NPCI said in a statement to Reuters it is regularly audited in the interests of security a...