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Associated Press of Pakistan  Date: Aug 04, 2020 PTI, UNITED NATIONS, Aug 04 (APP):A year after India revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir, UN human rights experts Tuesday called on India and the international community to take urgent action to address the “alarming” human rights situation in the territory. “Urgent action is needed,” the experts said in a statement issued in Geneva. “If India will not take any genuine and immediate steps to resolve the situation, meet their obligations to investigate historic and recent cases of human rights violations and prevent future violations, then the international community should step up.” Since the Indian Parliament revoked the constitutionally mandated status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir on August 5, 2019, “the human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir has been in free fall,” the experts said. “We are particularly concerned that during the COVID-19 pandemic, many protestors are still in detention and Internet restrictio...

The Hindu Date: Aug 04, 2020 PTI, U.S. officials say TikTok, under its Chinese parent, poses a risk because of the personal data it handles. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro suggested on Monday that Microsoft Corp could divest its holdings in China if it were to buy the Chinese owned. https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/microsoft-could-divest-china-holdings-wh-adviser/article32271429.ece

The Economic Times  Date: Aug 05, 2020 Surbhi Agarwal, New Delhi: Nearly 15 new mobile applications such as ByteDance-owned video editing app CapCut and Xiaomi’s browser app were included in a follow-up ban on 47 Chinese apps late last month, according to a list that ET has reviewed. The remaining were ‘lite’ or ‘pro’ versions of the apps that the government banned earlier in June, including TikTok and Helo, both owned by ByteDance, the list showed. Among the new apps included in the list are photo editor AirBrush, short video and prediction tool Meipai and camera app BoXxCAM, which are owned by China’s Meitu, which makes smartphones as well as many popular selfie apps. The company’s flagship app Meitu was banned in the first round. Email service NetEase, gaming app Heroes War and SlidePlus by QuVideo Inc are the other new apps blocked in the latest list issued about 10 days ago. Xiaomi’s Mi Browser Pro has also been blocked after its Mi Community app was banned earlier. Similarly,...

The Indian Express  Date:Aug 05, 2020 Aashish Aryan,  On Monday, US President Donald Trump  signed an executive order  barring federal agencies from hiring H-1B visa holders and other foreign workers in place of US citizens or green card holders. Who are given such visas? According to data from the US Department of Labor, of 65,000 new visa applications approved every year, an average 1,800 to 2,000, or roughly 3%, are H-1B visas granted to workers employed by federal agencies. To keep costs in check, federal agencies in the US — and various other countries — either hire a large number of foreign workers or outsource their back-end database updation and other jobs to business process outsourcing firms from around the world. Such jobs in developed countries pay minimal wages, which are not lucrative enough for employable individuals in these countries. Apart from workers hired by federal agencies, the executive order will also impact workers of Indian companies that a...

Financial Express  Date: Aug 02, 2020 FE Bureau,  Credit and Finance for MSMEs: As of July 29, loans of as much as Rs 1,36,155 crore were sanctioned to 40 lakh units, of which Rs 87,227 crore was already disbursed—a sign of the appeal of the scheme that was rolled out only on June 1. Credit and Finance for MSMEs:  The government has decided to relax the eligibility criteria for tapping the Rs 3-lakh-crore Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme (ECLGS) to cover professionals and enable a much wider pool of businesses to benefit from it, finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Saturday. Although there is no review of the scheme’s overall credit limit (Rs 3 lakh crore) yet, the additional beneficiaries are estimated to be sanctioned guaranteed loans of about Rs 1 lakh crore. he annual turnover limit of companies to be eligible to tap the scheme will be raised to Rs 250 crore from Rs 100 crore now, in sync with the revised definition of the MSMEs. Financial services secre...

Scroll.in Date:Aug 05, 2020 Prathamesh Muley States in India – which already have higher debts than states in other BRICS and emerging countries –will be forced to borrow even more this year. The Covid-19-related lockdowns have hit the revenues of Indian states at a time when it will be very hard for the Narendra Modi government to cough out it’s share of income to them. Given the situation, the gross market borrowings of Indian states is estimated to shoot up to Rs 8.25 lakh crore –or $110 billion – in the current financial year as compared to an earlier estimate of Rs 6.09 lakh crore, said research agency India Ratings. “The states have to maintain certain expenditures, such as salaries, important schemes, and increase spending on healthcare to tackle Covid-19. So, a rise in borrowing is inevitable,” said Pulapre Balakrishnan, professor of economics at Ashoka University. In India, the central government accounts for around 43% of the states’ revenues and the remaining 57% is a combin...

Fistpost Date: Aug 04, 2020 PTI, New Delhi:  The Indian army has categorically conveyed to China's PLA at the fifth round of military talks it will not compromise on India's territorial integrity, and clearly said disengagement of troops from Pangong Tso and a few other friction points in eastern Ladakh should be completed at the earliest, people familiar with the developments said on Monday. Senior commanders of the two armies held intense negotiations for nearly 11 hours on Sunday at a designated meeting point in Moldo on the Chinese side of the Line of Actual Control (LAC). The Indian delegation very clearly and firmly communicated to the Chinese side that restoration of status quo ante in all areas of eastern Ladakh was key for overall ties between the two countries, and that Beijing must ensure complete disengagement of its troops from the remaining friction points, according to the people familiar with the developments. It was also categorically conveyed that the Indian a...

Firstpost Date: Aug 03, 2020 Press trust of India,  New Delhi:  Drug firm Wockhardt on Monday said it has entered into an agreement with the UK government to supply millions of doses of multiple vaccines that are being developed to fight COVID-19. "The company has entered into an agreement with the UK government to fill-finish the COVID-19 vaccines. The manufacturing will be undertaken at Wockhardt's CP Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of the company based in Wrexham in North Wales," Wockhardt Founder Chairman Habil Khorakiwala said in an online press conference. As per the terms of the agreement, the company has reserved the manufacturing capacity to allow for the supply of multiple vaccines to the UK government in its fight against COVID-19, including AZD1222, the vaccine co-invented by the University of Oxford and its spin-out company, Vaccitech and licensed by AstraZeneca, he added. "We are proud to be collaborating with the UK government to make vaccines available ...

Scroll Date: Aug 05, 2020 PTI, China on Tuesday said the border conflict with India should be seen in a proper bilateral context, and urged New Delhi to ensure that differences do not escalate into disputes. Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson  Wang Wenbin , at a press conference, called for “stronger solidarity and cooperation” between India and China, saying that it would help the development of the two countries as well as “add stability and positive energy to world peace and prosperity”. “The two sides should always place the boundary issue in an appropriate position in bilateral relations and avoid differences escalating into disputes,” Wang said. “It is hoped that India will work with China in the same direction and jointly safeguard the overall interests of bilateral relations with concrete actions.” Wang was responding to a question about Indian External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s comment on August 2, that “reaching an equilibrium with Beijing is not going to be easy...

Money Control Date:Aug 04, 2020 PTI,  The International Monetary Fund said on August 4 that global current account imbalances narrowed in 2019 as trade slowed, and the coronavirus could narrow them further in 2020, but some commodity exporters and tourism-dependent countries will swing to current account deficits. The IMF's External Sector Report on currencies and imbalances for the world's 30 largest economies showed that net current account balances fell by 0.2 percentage point to 2.9 percent of global GDP. The Fund projected a further narrowing by 0.3 percent of global GDP in 2020, partly due to massive fiscal and monetary stimulus by many countries and continued pressure on trade. "Major commodity exporters should see their current accounts going from significant surpluses to significant deficits," IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath said in a webcast presentation of the report. The IMF projected that Saudi Arabia, which had a 5.9 percent current account surplus in ...

Dawn  Date: Aug 04, 2020 Mohiuddin Aazim  PAKISTAN relies heavily on foreign funds because the country’s savings are not enough for investment in economic progress. Savings and investment data for 2019-20 will become with the release of the State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) annual report for the fiscal year. But heavy foreign funding obtained during the year proves that the country’s domestic savings that had been in decline for several years could not pick up enough pace. According to the balance-of-payments statement, the government sector alone amassed $13 billion foreign funding in 2019-20. That obviously includes funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and other multilateral lending agencies plus foreign exchange funds from countries like China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The gap between total investment and gross national savings of Pakistan was not that large back in 2013-14 and 2014-15 — the first two years of the PML-N government. But as the go...

Dawn  Date:Aug 05, 2020 Amir Wasim,  ISLAMABAD: After completing a hectic schedule of both houses of parliament during which the National Assembly and Senate remained in session for almost two months, the two houses are now set to have another busy week commencing from Wednesday (tomorrow) where Kashmir and FATF-related legislation will come up for discussion. As the National Assembly is scheduled to resume its session on Aug 7 and the Senate is meeting on Wednesday (tomorrow), President Arif Alvi on Monday convened a joint sitting of parliament on Thursday to take up nearly a dozen legislation, including those required to be passed to fulfill some of the conditions of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) against terrorism and the bills which had been passed by one house but could not get through the other house within the constitutional time frame of 90 days. https://www.dawn.com/news/1572436/parliament-to-have-another-hectic-week